



rhs. FlQ4 
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1639. 



Proceedings at tlie Celeliratioii 



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MILFORD.CT.,, 

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f^AUGUST, 28TH.^ 
1889. 



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ANSONIA.: 

Press of Evenint. Sentinel. 

1890. 






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TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Committees, - - ----- 5 

Preface, - .-..-- y 

Order of Exercises, - - - - - - ii 

First Covenant of the Church, - - - - 14 

Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, - - - -15 

Salutations and Responses — 

From the Congregational Church of Orange, - 16 
From the Plymouth Church, Milford, - - 25 

The Tablets in Memoriam — 

Rev. Peter Prudden, . . . . - 32 

Rev. Roger Newton, ----- 45 

Rev. Samuel Andrew, - . - . - 53 
Rev. Samuel Whittelsey, - - - - 60 

(Sketches of the lives of Revs. Samuel Wales and 

Wm. Lockwood), ----- 65-67 

Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, - . - . 68' 

Rev. Jonathan Brace, D. D., - - - - 75 

Rev. James W. Hubbell's Letter, . - - 80 

Rev. A. J. Lyman's Paper, . - - - - 83 

The Historical Sermon, ----- 87 

Col. G. W. Baird's Hymn, - - - - - 129 

Rev. N. M. Calhoun's Address, - - - 130 

Rev. F. L. Ferguson's Address, - - - - 132 

The Present Condition of — 

The Church, ----- . 135 

The Sunday School, - - - - - 136 

The Y. P. S. C. E., 137 

The W. F. Miss. Soc, - - - - - 139 
The Ladies' Ben. Union, . . - - 141 



4 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

*Rev. J. A. Biddle's Historical Sermon, - - 143 

Deacons of the Church, ----- 182 

List of Donors to the — 

Newton Tablet, - - - - - - 183 

Andrew Tablet, - - - - - - . 1S5 

Whittelsey Tablet, - - - - - - 189 

Acknowldgement to — 

Mr. William Fowler, - - - - - 190 



*This Historical Sermon is highly prized by the Church as a docu- 
ment of a very rare merit, and as it has never been put in print, the 
Committee on Publication deemed it wise to publish it in this Memo- 
rial Volume. 



NOTE. 

The price of the Memorial Volume is fifty cents, in 
paper binding. Any number of copies desired may be 
obtained at any future time by applying to or addressing 
"The Clerk of the First Church," 

MiLFORD, Conn. 



GENERAL COMMITTEE. 



Rkv. Frank L. Fr.R(;usox, 
Caleb T. Merwin, Geo. ¥. Platt, 

Isaac C. Smith, C. F. Bosworth, 

Henrv C. Platt, Nathan E. Smith, 

Chas. W. Beardslev, David L. Clarke. 



SUB COMMITTEES. 



INVFI'ATIOXS AND PRINTING. 
Rev. Frank L. Fkr(;usox, Geo. F. Platt. 

FINANCE AND llUSriTALFiA'. 
Rev. Frank L. Ferc.uson, Davio L. Clarke. 

Ill arran.u;!!!.!^ for llie hospiialiiy, very valuable as- 
sistance was rendered by the Social Committee of the 
Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor and a 
Special Committee appointed by the Ladies' Benevolent 
Union. 

COM. V. P. S. C. E. COM. L. B. UNION. 

MissThedia S. I'la I r, Mrs. Adelia Elmer,. 
Otis Peck, " Charl'te Netjleton. 

Elliot Piorsiouit. " Cvrrik Tiimjals, 

Miss Anna Iialdw in, " Joseph Netileton, 

Miss Angie Campfield, Miss Marv Ellen Clarke. 



6 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

THE CHOIR. 

Organist: — 

Miss Grace V. Littlejohn, New Haven, Conn. 

Quartette: — 

Alphonso Smith, Mrs. Jos. E. Platt, 

C7E0. J. Smith, Miss Nellie Clarke. 

Chorus: — 

Edwin B. Baldwin, Mrs. Andrew Baldwin, 

Mrs. Edwin B. Baldwin, Mrs. Geo. E. Platt, 

Roger N. Smith, Miss Hattie Gunn, 
William L. Merwin, " Anna Baldwin, 

Samuel E. Frisbie, " Thedia S. Platt, 

Arthur Smith, " Emily A. Platt, 

Miss Bertha A. Clark, " Mary Halliwell. 

USHERS. 

C. F. Bosworth, Chairman. 
Jos. R. Clark, Samuel C. Durand, 

Geo. F. Smith, Chas. J. Morris, 

Chas. a. Smith, Chas. H. Stowe, 

Roger N. Smith, Chas. W. Platt, 

N. DwiGHT Platt, Andrew D. Baldwin, 

Chas. W. Merwin. 



PREFACE. 



The First Church of Clirist in Milford was orj^anizcd 
in New Haven, August 22, 1639, which was before the 
settlement of the town was commenced. The formation 
of the church is thus referred to in Mather's Magnalia: 

"There were then two famous churches gathered at 
New Haven — gathered in two days, one following upon 
the other — Mr. Davenport's and Mr. Prudden's, and with 
this one singular circumstance, that a mighty barn was 
the place wherein the duties of that solemnity were 
attended." 

The only authentic account of this transaction is 
contained in the records of this church in the following 
words: 

"The Church of Christ at Milford was first gathered 
at New Haven uppon .August 22, 1639. The persons 
first j(jyning in the fcnnulatioii were those whose names 
are ne.xt under mentioned: 

Peter Prudden, Zacii.\ri.\h Whitman, 

William Fowler, John Astwood, 
Edmund Tafm-, \ Tho.mas Buckingham, 

Thomas AVei.sh." 

No small proportion of the present membership can 
trace their lineal descent from the "Seven Pillars" and 



8 250TH ANNIVERSARV 

the Other earhest members of this historic Church. The 
words of Cowper — 

"Our ancestry, a gallant, Christian race, 
Patterns of every virtue, every grace," 

give beautiful and true expression to the sentiment, which 
has ever been cherished by the succeeding generations 
with ahnost sacred reverence. 

As might be expected, the celebration of the 250th 
Anniversary of the Church was anticipated with great 
joy, and the necessary preparations were undertaken with 
very general enthusiasm. The first official action was 
taken by the Committee of the Church in September, 
1888, when the following resolution was recommended 
to the Church and passed: "Voted, That Deacons Everard 
B. Clark and Geo. F. Piatt be delegated to lay the matter 
of the celebration of the 250th Anniversary of the 
Organization of the First Church and the Settlement of 
the Town of Milford before the Annual Town Meeting 
to be held the first Monday of October, and to request 
that at the said Town Meeting a committee be appointed 
to arrange with a committee of the First Church for a 
proper observance of the occasion." 

At the said Town Meeting it was voted: "That a 
committee of five be appointed by the Town of Milford, 
to act in concert with a committee of three to be appointed 
by the First Church, to arrange for the celebration of the 
250th Anniversary of the Organization of the Church and 
Settlement of the Town." 

When informed of that action, the Church voted to 
appoint (ieo. F. Piatt, Nathan E. Smith, C. F. Bosworth, 
I. C. Smith and David L. Clarke a Committee to confer 
with a Committee of the Town. An increasing sentiment 
had been developing against a joint celebration and the 
two Committees, having conferred, gave their judgment 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. Q 

against tlie feasil)ility of any concerted action. It was 
voted at the annual meeting of the C'hurch, Dec. i6, to 
accept the report of the Advisory C'ommittee, and a com- 
mittee of nine members of the Church were appointed 
to arrange for a proper commemoration of the 250th 
Anniversary of its Organization. 

August 25, 1889, was agreed upon by the Committee 
as the day for the Memorial Service. The pastor was 
invited to dehver an Historical Sermon, but, owing to 
many pressing duties and his recent acceptance of the 
pastoral office, asked to be excused. 

The Committee, having learned that si.\ tablets 
in memory of deceased pastors were to be i)resented 
to the Church on the Anniversary day, concluded to 
arrange the Order of Exercises with the view to giv- 
ing special prominence to the presentation and accept- 
ance of the Memorial Tablets. Rev. J. A. Biddle, 
who had made a most careful examination of the lives of 
the early pastors during his own pastorate, was invited to 
accept in the name of the Church the tablets in memory 
of Pastors Prudden, Newton, Andrew and Whittlesey. 
Rev. David B. Coe, having been colleague pastor with 
Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, was asked to accept for the 
Church the tablet given in his memory. Rev. F.lijah C. 
Baldwin, a native of Milfortl and in his young manhood 
a member of the First Church, and having made for many 
years a very minute study of the history of Milford and 
the neighboring towns, was chosen to make the Historical 
Address. Rev. N. M. Calhoun not being present at the 
Morning Service, the Prayer of Invocation was offered 
by Rev. J. A. Biddle. Rev. C. W. Park, liirmingham, 
and Rev. Joel S. Ives, Stratford, performetl the parts 
assigned to Rev. S. M. Kceler, who was in town but 
unable, owing to sudden sickness, to attend any of the 
services. 



lo 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Letters of regret were received from Revs. Jas. W. 
Hubbell and A J. Lyman, the former having gone on a 
trip to Alaska and the latter having sustamed a physical 
injury during his summer vacation. Their manuscripts 
were not read on Anniversary Day for lack of time but 
were read to the Church by the pastor on a following 
Sunday. The addresses, which were to have been deliv- 
ered by Rev. N. M. Calhoun and the pastor, were omitted 
also on account of the unexpected length of the services. 
The former, however, spoke a few words of hearty con- 
gratulation. The Morning Exercises having been consid- 
erably prolonged, the presentation of the last four tablets 
was deferred till the afternoon, and thereby caused the 
omission of the addresses above referred to. 

The music was under the direction of the Choir of 
the Church and was a pleasing feature of the day. No 
more agreeable weather could have been desired, and the 
entire capacity of the House of Worship was not sufifi- 
cient to accommodate the eager throng that sought 
admission. The galleries were open to the public. The 
Services lasted for seven hours, with only a brief inter- 
mission for refreshments, which were liberally served to 
the guests by the Ladies in the Lecture Room and Parlor. 
The Ladies of the Church also beautifully decorated the 
interior of the House of Worship with evergreens and 
bouquets of fragrant flowers. "It is good for us to be 
here," was the spontaneous and unanimous expression of 
the vast and delighted audience. 

Rev. Frank L. Ferguson, ) Committee 
Geo. F. Platt, [ on 



David L. Clarke, ) Publication. 









'^ 



/ 




IIIIKI) MOUSE OK WOKSIUl'. 



(Sue paK'-fS, 17s .Tiid 176). 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



LORD'S DAY, AUGUST 25, 1889. 

TO A. M. 

Organ PRELunF, — Okfertorie — Batiste. 
DoxoLOGV, Choir and Congregation 

Prayer of Invocation, Rev. N. M. Calhoun 

Te Deum, E-flat— Z-'. A. Schnecker, Choir 

Reading the Scriptures, The Pastor 

Psalms 124-5-6, Joshua 4: 1-9; 19-24, Hebrews it: 32-40. 
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Supplication, 

The Pastor 
Hymn 93, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
Reading the First Covenant of the Church, 

Rev. Henry G. Marshall 
Administration of the Lord's Supper, 

Rev. Danid W. Coe 
Hymn 885, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
j Morning Offering. 
/ Offerttjrv — Forever with the Lord — Ch. Gounod, 

The Quartette 
Salutation from thk Orange Church, 

Rev. H. W. Hunt 
Response, Henry C. Plati 

Salutation from the Plymotih Ciuri 11. 

A. A. li A LOW IN 



12 250th anniversary 

Response, The Pastor 

Hymn 1028, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
Presentation of Tablets in Memoriam: — 

Rev. Peter PRrnnEN, ) Presented by Henry J. Prudden. 

1639-1656. ) Response by Rev. J. A. Biddle. 

Rev. Roger Newton, ) Presented by Henry G. Newton. 

1660-1683. f Response by Rev. J. A. Biddle. 

Rev. Samuel Andrew, I Presented by Rev. Henry G. Marshall. 

1685-1738. )' Response by Rev. J. A. Biddle. 

Re\-. .Samuel Whittlesey., / Presented by Harry C. C. Miles. 
1737-1768- ) Response by Rev. J. A. Biddle. 

Rev. Bezaleel Pixneo, ( Presented by Alfred W. Pinneo. 

1796-1849. \ Response by Rev. David B. Coe. 

Rev. Jonathan Brace, ) Presented by Albert Brace Pattou. 

1845-1863 j Response by the Pastor. 

HvMN IOI2, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
Benediction, Rev. J. G. Baird, EHington, Ct. 

PosTLUDiuM, Offertory in G — llWr. 

2:30 p. M. 

Voluntary March — JVag/icr. 

Jubilate in A — Dudley Buck, Choir 

Selections from the Scriptures, Rev. S. M. Keeler, 
PsA. 40: 1-3. 45: 10-17. 78: 1-7. [South Britain, Ct. 
Prayer, Rev. S. M. Keeler 

Hymn 36, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
Letter, Rev. James \V. Hubbell 

Foundations Laid by Our Ancestors, 

Rev. a. J. Lyman 
Hymn 1019, (Songs for the Sanctuary), 

Choir and Congregation 
Historical Address, Rev. Elijah Baldwin 

Yix^m—Contributcd by G. JJ'. Baird, 

Choir and Congregation 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, AflLFORD. 1 3 

TiiK Character ok Our An'cestors, 

Rkv. N. M. Calhoun 
Present Condition of the Church, The Pastor 
Hymn — Dr. Bacon s. Choir and Congregation 

Benediction, The Pastor 

PosTLUDiUM, Hallelujah — I/a/uiei. 



MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST 26, 1889. 

A Social Reunion will take place from 7:3010 8:30 
o'clock, after which there will be Platform Exercises, in 
which the resident pastors of the town, visiting ministers 
and other members of the Church will participate. 



THE CELEBRATION. 



THE FIRST COVENANT OF THE CHURCH. 

*Read from the Original Records, made in the hand- 
writing of Rev. Peter Prudden: 

"The church covenant yt they entered unto is here- 
under written: 

"Since it hath pleased ye Lord of his infinite good- 
ness and free grace to call us (a company of poor miser- 
able wretches) out of ye world unto fellowship with 
himselfe in Jesus Christ, and to bestow himself upon us 
by an everlasting covenant of his free grace sealed in 
ye blood of Jesus Christ, to be our God, and to make and 
avouch us to be his people, and hath undertaken to cir- 
cumcise our hearts, that we may love ye Lord our God, 
and feare him, and walk in his wayes: we, therefore, do, 
this day, avouch ye Lord to be our God, even Jehovah, 
the only true God, the Almighty maker of heaven and 
earth, the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and 
wee do this day enter into an holy covenant with ye Lord, 
and one with another, through ye grace and help of Christ 
strengthening us (without whom we can do nothing), to 
deny ourselves and all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and 
all corruptions and pollutions, wherein in any sort wee 
have walked. And do give up ourselves wholly to 
ye Lord Jesus Christ, to be taught and governed by him 
in all relations, conditions and conversations in this 
world; avouching him to be our only prophet and teacher, 
our only Priest and Propitiation, our only King and Law- 
giver. And we do further bind ourselves, in his strength, 
to walk before him, in all professed subjection to all his 
holy ordinances, according to ye rule of the gospel, and 
also to walk together with his church and ye members 
thereof in all brotherly love and holy watchfulness, to 

*Read by Rev. Henry G. Marshall, Cromwell. Ct., son of Sam- 
uel A. Marshall, elected deacon of the First Church, Milford, Jan- 
uary I, 1S36. 



FIRST CUUKCH OF CHRIST, MIFFORD. 1 5 

ye inutual building up one another in Fayth and Love. 
All which )'t-' Lord help us to i)erform, through his rich 
grace in Christ, according to his Covenant. Amen." 



ADMIXISTRATIOX OF THF LORD'S SUPPFR. 



Rev. David B. Coe, who was pastor of the Church 
1840-44 and who is now the oldest e.x-j^astor, made some 
very impressive remarks and administered the Sacrament. 
He is now the Hon. Sec'y of the American Home Mis- 
sionary Society. There were present about one thousand 
communicants. 

The Flements of the Communion were distributed 
by the following: 

Geo. F. Platt, 1 

O. E. Nettletox, I 

Henry N. Pfatt, ]> Deacons of the First Church. 

Darius T. WHircoMii, | 

Everari) B. Cfark, j 



Richard Platt, "l 
Caleb T. Merwin, [ p . i 
John Benjamin, [ 



-Deacons of the First Church. 

Jos. Benjamin, J 

Samuel C. Glennv, New York City. 

Chas. W. Miles, New Britain, Ct. 

Albert A. Baldwin, Deacon of Plymouth Church, 
Milford. 

Lfvfrtt J. Clark, Senior Deacon of Congregational 
Church, Orange. 

MORNING OFFERING. 

The collection amounted to si.\tv dollars. 



l6 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

SALUTATION FROM THE CONGREGATIONAL 
CHURCH, ORANGE. 

REV. H. W. HUNT. 

Mr. Moderator and Members of the First Congregational 
C/ii/re/i, Mi/ford:— 

In behalf of the Congregational Church of Orange, 
once known as the Congregational Church of North Mil- 
ford, of which I have the honor to be a member and to 
represent to-day as its pastor, I extend to you our most 
cordial Christian greetings. I assure you that it was with 
no little pleasure that we received and accepted the in- 
vitation which you so kindly extended to us to be present 
on this occasion and to participate in these Christian fes- 
tivities. It subtracted nothing from this pleasure that 
we felt that we might rightfully gather in this family cir- 
cle as a constituent part, not only because of our terri- 
torial proximity to you and our oftimes friendly inter- 
course with you, but also because of the fact that we are 
by direct lineage the offspring of this church. 

As you very well know, more than eighty years since, 
a company of Christian men, fifty-four in number, living 
in what was then the north part of the town of Milford, 
intimately associated with your predecessors here in 
church life, feeling that they had attained their majority 
and that their religious life would be best conserved by 
an independent organization, proceeded to form the Con- 
gregational Church of North Milford; and this, in part, 
explains our presence and participation here to-day. It, 
no doubt, behooves us to deport ourselves with that mod- 
esty and deference becoming children; and yet I maybe 
permitted to say that the Church which I represent, so 
far as I have been able to ascertain, has maintained from 
that earliest day to the present hour an independent. 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 7 

self-sustaining, self-respecting, honorable existence, en- 
joying a fair measure of peace and prosperity. 

And wiiile self-praise is not in order, it may be per- 
mitted me as pastor of this church to say that its mem- 
bership, which has now reached nearly one hundred and 
seventy, includes a goodly number of substantial Chris- 
tian men and women who liberally and cheerfully sustain 
the means of grace and undertake the work of the 
Church. Especially does it include a goodly number of 
C'hristian young men and young women. We feel that 
above the average country congregation we are to be 
congratulated because of the large number of young 
men and young women who may be depended upon for 
distinctively Christian service, to take part in our social 
meetings, or to lead such meetings, and to undertake any 
Christian duties which the needs of the organization or 
of the community may demand. And so, while we are 
not insensible to a measure of imperfection and failure 
in our church life, and while we feel especially honored 
to be thus identified with you to-day, witnessing, as we 
do, your increased membership, your enlarged prosperity 
and the strength and beauty of all the appointments of 
your church life, we also feel profoundly grateful that, 
comparatively speaking, there is little in our own past 
experience or present condition to merit your disapproval 
or to bring dishonor u|)on the Christian cause. 

It is pleasant to be able to mention on this occasion 
that the period of our separation — our/d^/v//^?/ separation 
— has been a remarkable period in the history of the 
Christian Church. It has been an era of exceptional 
spiritual life and growth, beginning with the great revival 
season of i.Soo, after more than half a century of the 
most appalling spiritual decadence and moral degenera- 
tion throughout this country, followed by successive 
revivals and "waves of spiritual impulse" for many years 



1 8 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

until we have attained, as we trust, a condition of more 
constant and normal spiritual power in our church life 
and work. During this period something like ten mil- 
lion communicants have been gathered into evangelical 
churches of this land, an increase unprecedented and, 
indeed, unparalleled in the experience of Christendom. 
Inhere has also resulted what has been termed "a less 
sanctimonious and more deeply rooted piety," more in- 
telligent Christian affection, and more faithful testimony 
for Christ, including all true elements of godliness and 
Christian manhood. It has been a period during which 
Christian men have seemed to be returning to the primi- 
tive simplicity and power of the gospel; Christian creeds 
have been becoming briefer and at the same time broader 
and deeper and stronger and more practical; Christian 
fellowships have been becoming simpler and sweeter and 
at the same time wider and more blessed. It has been 
a period of remarkable Christian activity, during which 
the wonderful vitality of Christian faith has been demon- 
strated by its self-organizing and self-propagating power, 
resulting as we know how largely in foreign and home 
missions, in Bible, and Tract, and Sunday-school, and 
Temperance societies; and in a multitude, too numer- 
ous to mention, of educational, humane and eleemosy- 
nary organizations and institutions, the direct fruits of 
Christianity. The time has come when we may reach 
out, if we will, and easily enter into fellowship with all 
the Christian worship and Christian work of the whole 
world. 

In some proportion as we have entered into this new 
life and participated in this broader, this universal, fel- 
lowship, our individual life as churches and as members 
of churches has been blessed and this narrower, this 
home, fellowship has been made purer, and stronger, and 
more helpful. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil. FORI). T9 

As \vc return once more in this formal and yet 
hearty way to this Mother C'liurch, as we enter again 
this family circle on this occasion, which can hardly fail 
to become memorable, we shall be delighted to hear re- 
hearsed anew, if 3'ou please, those interesting facts and 
incidents connected with the earliest inception and de- 
velopment of our own life; and to learn more fully of all 
the prosperity which, under the hand of ("lod, has at- 
tended this home Church during the two hundred and 
fifty years of its honorable existence. 

It is said of Napoleon, that once, in Egypt, when 
he would enthuse his soldiers for the strife and valorous 
deeds, he said to them: ["Forty generations are looking 
down upon you." ) It was, indeed, a long and glowing, 
nay, in many respects, gloomy record of conflict and valor 
with which they were thus brought face to face. As we 
reflect to-day upon the heroisms of the past; as we recall 
its struggles and successes; as we read again the long 
roll of illustrious names of men who have been identi- 
fied with this family of churches and the long roll of 
names of men less illustrious who were yet faithful, 
many of whom liave passed on to their heavenly reward; 
as we contemplate how wisely they wrought, with what 
prayer and j^atience and perseverance they laid founda- 
tions, with what toil and self-sacrifice and fortitude and 
joy they built and maintained a superstructure, shall not 
these memories become to us an incentive for the present 
and an inspiration for the future. Time would fail me 
to suitably speak of these things; and yet may not that 
word of Scripture, already brought home to our minds 
and hearts at this hour, become to us a new and living 
word of (jod '; Seeing we are compassed about with so 
great a cloud of witnesses, worthies who wrought in the 
past through faith, therefore, let us also run with patience 
the race that is set before us. May we not to-dav fed n 



20 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

new and abiding thrill of Christian faith and hope and 
joy, and rise to nobler Christian resolve and enthusiasm 
as we identify ourselves anew with those who have gone 
before and more closely unite the church triumphant and 
the church militant, adopting as our own the language 
of the Christian poet: 

"One army of the living (jod, 

To His commands we bow; 
Part of the host have crossed the flood, 

And part are crossing now." 

Again I say, we extend to you our most cordial 
Christian greetings. 



RESPONSE. 

HENRY C. PLATT, MILFORD. 

It is with great pleasure that I perform the duty on 
this occasion of responding to the Salutation to this 
Mother Church from "her youngest daughter," the 
Church in (Jrange, formerly and to many of the older 
people known as "The Church in North Milford." In 
the very few moments allotted to me, however, I can do 
little more than to return in behalf of the First Church 
of Milford hearty thanks to the last speaker, and through 
him to the people he has so gracefully and feelingly rep- 
resented, for the kind words, friendly salutations and 
large attendance extended to us on this the 250th Anni- 
versary of her birth. 

Two hundred and fifty years ! It seems a long time 
and yet, when I see by a genealogy handed me by Mr. 
Pond and verified by my own search, that there are, on 
the average, but four and five lives between those of us 
now living and our ancestors — the first settlers — we real- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 2 1 

ize how rapidly two huntlred and fifty years have passed. 
It is not so very long after all. 

In October, 1804, the Cieneral Assembly of the State 
passed this resolution: 

RESOLVE INCORPORATING THE SOCIETY OF NORTH MILFORD. 

Upon petition of Samuel Treat, of the First Society, 
and Joseph Treat, of the Second Society, in Milford, 
and others living in that part of both Societies, called 
Briant's Farm, resolved by this Assembly: 

•'That the petitioners and others, inhabitants of that 
part of said two Societies lying Northward of a line be- 
ginning at the line between New Haven and Milford, 35 
rods North of the head of Oyster Creek or Oyster River; 
thence in a Westerly direction to the place where two 
small roads intersec*;, about 12 rods South of John Treat's; 
thence to the stone bridge on the Derby road over 
Weaver's brook; thence to Housatonic river at the North 
end of the upper meadow, be and are hereby made an 
Ecclesiastical Society and Body Politic forever by the 
name of 'North Milford,' with all the powers, privileges 
and immunities usually granted or appertaining to other 
located Ecclesiastical Societies in this State." 

On the third day of January, 1805, the First Church 
of Milford passed the following vote: 

Voted, "That the following persons be at their own 
request dismissed and recommended to be formed into 
a distinct Church, in communion with this and the sis- 
ter Churches in this Con.sociation, they belonging to that 
part of the town, incorporated by the General Assembly 
as a distinct Ecclesiastical Society by the name of 
North Milford,' to wit: 

Matthew Woodruff and his wife, 

Elias Clark and his wife, 

Samuel Treat and his wife, 

Jonathan Rogers and his wife, 

John Bryan, 

Anna Treat, 

Frances Treat, 

Jonah Treat and his wife, 



22 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Asa Piatt and his wife, 

Samuel Stone and his wife, 

Robert Treat, 

Joseph Stone and his wife, 

Robert Treat, Jr., and his wife, 

Samuel Prudden, 

Benedict A. Law and his wife, 

Keturah, wife of J ire Piatt, 

Rebecca Pardee, 

Josiah Boardman, 

Mary Woodruff, 

Anna Clark." . 

On May 12 of the same year Capt. John Gunn and 
his wife were dismissed at their own request and recom- 
mended to the Church in North Milford; and in the years 
following were occasional dismisions to and receptions 
from the Church in North Milford. 

The Town of Orange was created in May, 1822, by 
taking the Ecclesiastical Society of North Milford, pre- 
cisely as above designated, and annexing to it a portion 
of the Town of New Haven. The Society, however, re- 
tained the same name twenty years longer — until 1842 — 
■when the General Assembly passed this resolution: 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives in General Assembly convened: "That the 
name of the Ecclesiastical Society of North Milford, in 
the Town of Orange, be and the same is hereby altered 
to the name of the Ecclesiastical Society of Orange." 

We are assured that it was not because of any lack 
of harmony and difference of opinion, or any want of 
affection for the Mother Church, that this band of 
brothers and sisters left the old Church and established 
a new religious home of their own. No doubt, with the 
joy of setting up the new home there were regrets, feel- 
ings of sadness and homesickness at leaving the old 
home. Here they had come from childhood with their 
parents year after year; here they had taken upon them- 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, Mil. FORD. 23 

selves vows as disciples of Christ, had been bapli/.ed 
and partaken for the first time of the holy eoninuinion. 
Mr. Pinneo, of blessed memory, had just completed 
seven years of his long i)astorate. The church in those 
days was, we must believe, much more a center of in- 
fluence and interest to the people than in our times, a 
principal source of intellectual and aesthetic influence and 
culture and the place of weekly reunion and meeting of 
friends and neighbors. The many distracting influences 
that now draw away the attention of the people did not 
then exist. Some had been members of this Church for 
many years, Matthew Woodruff and Esther, his wife, hav- 
ing been admitted under Mr. Wales, Oct. 31, 1773, being 
thirty-two years before; Samuel Prudden and Jonathan 
Rogers and Elizabeth, his wife, in 1788, being seventeen 
years before; Robert Treat, Jr., and Content, his wife, 
in 1790. All those were admitted under Mr. Lockwood. 
Benedict A. Law was admittecl in 1771 under Mr. Wales 
and was chosen a deacon, Nov. 29, 1790, so that at the 
time of leaving he had held for more than seven years the 
then highly honored position of a deacon in this church. 
Joseph Stone and his wife were admitted in 1790 under 
Mr. Lockwood; Capt. John Gunn and his wife, Martha, 
in 1799; Jonah Treat and his wife, Asa Piatt and his wife, 
and Mary Woodruff in 1801, under Mr. Pinneo. Loca- 
tion alone, nearness to their own homes and greater con- 
venience for themselves, their families, their neighbors 
and friends, were the only and controlling cau.ses. We 
cannot doubt that it was with regret that they severed the 
old ties, and left old associations; but duty to their fam- 
ilies seemed to call for the^establishment of a church in 
their own locality. The (Rev. Erastus Scranton, then a 
young man, was installed as pastor of the new Church, 
and, as many another has done since, soon found a fair 
daughter of the land to his liking; for we find that he 



24 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

was married to Mary E. Prudden,] daughter of Newton 
Prudden, by the' Rev. Mr. Pinneo, April 10, 1806, — a Ht- 
tle more than a year after the young Church was formed. 

As it is said that all roads in Italy lead to Rome, so 
it may be said with truth that all roads in that part of 
Orange lead to the Church on Orange Green. And now 
for nearly three generations has the Church on the hill 
been the religious home of that little band sent forth, we 
can have no doubt, with prayers and benedictions and 
kindest wishes from this old Church in 1805 — its spire 
pointing heavenward and each recurring Sabbath morn- 
ing its bell sounding out over the hills and valleys, call- 
ing the people from their homes and farms to meet 
together, join in prayer and praise, and listen to the word 
as spoken from the sacred desk. 

Not one of those, whose names I have read, remain. 
All that is mortal has been for many years sleeping the 
last quiet, peaceful sleep, either in our own Milford 
churchyard, or in the little burying ground on the hillside 
almost beneath the shadow of the Church which they 
established and loved and cherished while they lived. 
They are gone; but the Church they built, with all its 
hallowed memories grown up and clustering around it, 
all its healthful and conserving influences, remain to 
bless the community. "The memory of the just is blessed 
and their works do follow them." 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MIF.FORU. 25 

SALUTATION FROM PLYMOUTH CHURCH, 
MILFORI). 

DEACON ALBERT A. BALDWIN. 

Dear Brethren and Friends: 

Plymouth Cluircli, the eldest dauj^hter of this old 
and venerated Church, brings to you her greetings on this 
glad Anniversary Day. 

We congratulate you on having fdled for so many 
years such a large and important place in this community. 
Gathered in this sacred place, what throngs of memories 
crowd around us ! We look backward and see in imagi- 
nation the noble men and women who have helped to 
make the history of these two hundred and fifty years. 
Visions of that little band of pioneers rise before us. 
All honor to those early settlers whose perseverance has 
made it possible for us to enjoy these privileges to-day. 
Who does not admire the spirit of those heroic souls who 
left the friends and the comforts of their native land that 
they might worship God according to the dictates of con- 
science ? I think we can hardly measure their influence 
on the church and state, for our surroundings furnish us 
no key to their conditions. Nor has the influence of 
those early settlers been limited to the narrow borders of 
our own town. It has gone out in an ever-widening 
circle through the lives of those who. taught here, have 
left their homes to assist in forming other communities. 

We congratulate you upon the long line of conse- 
crated men who have fdled the sacred office of pastor and 
teacher these many years. It is no small thing to have 
had such an unbroken succession of godly men, learned 
in the school of Christ and in the schools of this world — 
men who did not fear to preach the whole counsel of 
God, whether it related to civil polity or to eternal life. 



26 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

Grand men those were, who helped to lay the foundations 
of church and state so strong and deep. Truly they 
builded better than they knew. I am not one of those 
who see in them only a spirit of narrow-mindedness and 
religious intolerance. The times in which they Itved 
doubtless made them austere in manner and well-nigh 
relentless in carrying out their ideas of right. But they 
were men of profound convictions and earnest spirit, who 
believed in the eternal truths of God with all their hearts, 
and sought by every means. in their power to impress those 
truths on all with whom they came in contact. Yet, not- 
withstanding this faith in Ciod, they took the old flint- 
lock musket to church and watched as well as prayed. 
With the Bible in one hand to guard against the foes 
within, and the good old king's arm in the other, tbey 
kept a lookout at the four corners of the church that 
they might not be surprised by the savage foes without. 

Again we congratulate this Church on the success 
which has marked her progress since her institution. It 
is difficult to estimate progress in the realm of the spir- 
itual world. We see some of the results, but not until 
we reach the city of the Great King shall we know all 
that has been accomplished by the men and women who, 
as members of this Zion, have labored in season and out 
of season for the dear Master. What this community 
would have been without this Church we do not like to 
think. Not alone has the seed sown brought forth fruit 
in nobler purposes and purer lives; but it has, I believe, 
helped to make the town in its physical aspects one of 
the most beautiful in our commonwealth. Our pleasant 
homes and well-kept lawns add their testimony to the 
influence that has streamed forth from the gospel teach- 
ings. 

Dear friends, we are glad with you to-day as you 
celebrate your quarto-millenial birthday. Two hundred 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORD. 27 

and fifty years I W'c cannot realize all those words 
mean — we, who have only lived a short period of that 
time. For one hundred years you were the only church 
in the town. Then Plymouth Church was organized. 
The mother may have thought her child wayward and 
headstrong in the course taken, but in the retrospect the 
separation seems to have been of profit to both. I am 
sure none can wish you greater prosperity (the evidence 
of which we see in this beautiful building so recently 
adorned) than Plymouth Church. And my sincere 
prayer is, as is that of our Church, that God may con- 
tinue to bless you with the richest blessings of His love. 
May He cause these two Chuixhes, situated so near each 
other, to be more truly united than ever before in the 
work He has for us to do in this community. 



RESPONSE. 

REV. FRANK I,. FF.RGCSON. 

.1/1 Dear Christian Friend and Brother: 

It is my happy privilege to e.xpress to you and the 
other members of the Church which you represent the 
hearty appreciation, with which those of our communion 
now receive and will ever cherish your very cordial words 
of congratulation and Christian greeting. For several 
months we have anticipated this memorial day with the 
abounding joy, such as they e.xperience who wait with 
cheerful expectancy for the occasion of a family reunion. 
F'ive generations have passed away since those, who or- 
ganized themselves into your Church went out from under 
the roof of this spiritual home and erected for themselves 
another temple of worship. However unhappy may have 
been the circumstances one hundred and fifty years ago 



28 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

which caused the withdrawal of the sixty who preferred 
to constitute themselves into a separate communion, there 
can be at this time no other emotions in all our hearts 
than those of devout and abundant thanksgiving that 
this anniversary day finds the old mother Church, with 
those who represent four hundred descendants of her 
own spiritual children, rejoicing together with equal glad- 
ness at the home altar. 

It would be a profitless task to lift the veil from the 
discussions, which culminated in the separation of those 
dissatisfied with the theology of Rev. Mr. Whittelsey 
when called to the pastorate of this Church. Those were 
da3'S of keen controversy over doctrinal differences, and 
the suspected Arminian tendencies of the new preacher 
were too grievous to be borne by many of those, whose 
heads and hearts were true to the well defined and better 
defended system of high Calvinism. It seems very 
strange to us, who now live in this typical New England 
town and who are members of these Churches character- 
istically conservative, to be obliged to confess that the 
fathers, even a century and a half ago, ventured to install 
a minister of the gospel who stood fearlessly as a repre- 
sentative of progressive orthodoxy. I do not think I am 
wrong in surmising, that neither of these Churches would 
be disposed at present to call to the pulpit a preacher of 
the gospel, whose theology was not tinted in a consider- 
able degree with the softer colors of Arminian doc- 
trine. 

It is said that at the council, called to ordain and 
install Mr. Whittelsey, the debate was with so much pas- 
sion that fists were doubled on that occasion. To-day 
we meet not with clenched but with open hands of Chris- 
tian hospitality and friendship. All the passion of by- 
gone days has long since been silenced, the spirit of 
enmity and persecution is more faded than the leaves of 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 29 

the records, and in the present feeHngs of good-will and 
hearty co-operation only the happy issues of former differ- 
ences are left. 

Roth of the Churches which we represent recognize 
the Bible as their rule of faith and practice. One of the 
family virtues, which the Apostle Paul admonished the 
Ephesians to cultivate, was "Children obey your parents 
in the Lord; for this is right." I am addressing you who 
stand before me as the spiritual children of this Church; 
and yet you have attained a full maturity of age and 
have displayed so wisely the strength of your independ- 
ence that I can hardly charge you to heed the Apostolic 
counsel. In that same catalogue of family virtues Paul 
urges the parents not to provoke their children to wrath. 
Let us confidently hope that the only provocation arising 
from the future relations of these two Churches may be 
to mutual love and peace. 

I congratulate you, my dear friends, on the name 
which you have given to your Church. Plymouth stands 
for the ennobled principles of civil liberty and religious 
freedom. It stands for the universal rights and ecpiality 
of men. It stands for absolute belief in the Father- 
hood o' Cod and the brotherhood of man. It stands 
for faith in the great and central facts of revelation. 
It .^^.ands for a protest against all churchly ritualism, 
which detracts from a spiritual worship. It stands for 
the political and Christian institutions of our land, 
which are the most glorious among the most ad- 
vanced civilizations of this century — institutions which 
represent the blood and toil, the prayers aiul sacrifices, 
not only of two hundred and fifty but of si.\ thousand 
years. I congratulate you that you are seeking with 
great consecration to realize the full significance of the 
name of your Church. I rejoice greatly in your late con- 
clusion to repair and redecorate your house of worship. 



30 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Though temporarily without pastoral leadership you have 
all the qualities of self-reliance which should character- 
ize every Congregational Church; and in your own wisdom 
and strength you have resolved to undertake the enterprise. 
The sanctuary usually gives a fair index of the spiritlial 
state of the people. Your disposition to honor the Lord 
could not be expressed any more definitely than in your 
determination to make beautiful his sanctuary. Do not 
think that you are beginning any trivial or vanishing 
work in refitting your house of worship in a manner, that 
it may express more worthily God's glory and your con- 
secration. Your work and your gifts will be wrought in- 
to its deepest foundation and topmost pinnacle. 

And now I feel confidently, that I am expressing the 
collective and unanimous mind of this Church when I 
say, that their prayers and their sympathies will always 
go along with you. May God enable each of these 
Churches in its own sphere of Christian activity to be 
found faithful to all opportunities, and may we have 
heavenly grace to acquit ourselves as faithful laborers 
throughout this seed-time of the earth's coming regener- 
ation, in the full development of which it is, that the 
cross of Christ shall behold the consummation of its 
triumphs. With Apostolic benediction we now commend 
you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able 
to build you up and to give you and all your spiritual 
children an inheritance among all them which are sancti- 
fied. 



Tlie ■:■ ITQeniorial •:• tablets. 



PETER PRUDDEN 

FOUNDER AND PASTOR 

of this church from its establishment in 
1639 till his death in 1656. 



"I am sure tis a blessed child of God 
whose name is before us; who besides his 
other excellent qualities was noted for 
a singular faculty to sweeten, compose 
and qualify exasperated spirits and stop 
or heal all contentions — whence it was 
that his town of Milford enjoyed peace 
with truth all his days. 

He continued an able and faithful servant of 
the churches until the fifty-sixth year of his 
age: when his death was felt by the colony as 
the fall of a pillar which made the whole 
fabrick to shake." 

Cotton Mather. 



The inscription given above is on a Brass Tablet 
which is set on a polished, dark Tennessee marble back- 
ground. The inscription is in illuminated colors, sur- 
rounded with ornamental corners and lines engraved on 
the Brass Tablet. The marble is 3 ft. 5 in. high and 2 
ft. 10 in. wide. The brass is 2 ft. 9 in. high and 2 ft. 2 
in. wide. 

The tablet was the gift of Mrs. Susan Prudden 
Beard si ey. 



FIRST CRURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. ;^^ 

PRESENTATION. 

HF.NRV J. PRUDDEN, NEW HAVEN, CONN. 

At the celebration of tliis town held in the centen- 
nial year of 1876 the orator of the day in closing a ref- 
erence to Peter Prudden as the first pastor and leader in 
founding this colony of Milford, after quoting that por- 
tion of the epitaph before you that speaks of the death 
of Mr. Prudden as '"the fall of the pillar that causes the 
whole fabric to shake," said: 'Tt is a sad commentary on 
one generation that the place where so mighty a pillar 
lies is unmarked and unknown. No stone, no epitaph, 
no sign designates the grave of Peter Prudden and no 
man knoweth his grave to this day. It is that, whatever 
of just reproach this thought may convey to the 
Church he founded and to the descendants he left 
may be removed, one of those descendants has placed in 
this Church this tablet bearing his name and has commis- 
sioned me to present it to you for your care and as a me- 
mento of him. 

It would be pleasant in doing this if we might bring 
the man before us this morning. No painted portrait of 
him, as in the case of Davenport, exists, or it might have 
been copied on the tablet; yet better not, perhaps, for the 
body we are not so much interested in. It has too long 
ago gone to dust. But of the heart, mind, character and 
work we may perhaps with profit try to draw a portraiture, 
for their results still remain, li must necessarily be 
meagre and imperfect, with, perhaps, to some of you 
little that is new, a thing of threads and patches, strung 
together with somewhat of justifiable conjecture, for fire 
and time and death have removed nuiiiy of the means 
of knowing about him. 



34 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Many first things and people are noted only for their 
priority. He was the first pastor of this Church, but he 
had much more, than simply being a pioneer minister, for 
which he should be remembered. He was in the first 
place a mature man when coming here — nearly forty years 
•old — after a worthy service elsewhere in the earlier years 
of his life. 

He was an educated man. From what college or 
university he graduated we do not yet know, but we have 
the evidence not only of one who says that "he received 
a thorough college course," and of another who speaks 
of him as "learned in the dead languages," but also of 
his letters and other writings. He was a man of a cer- 
tain influence and position in England. We know of him 
as in orders in the church of England and as disturbed 
by the Ecclesiastical Courts for non-conformity. He is 
said to have "comprised among his hearers in Hereford- 
shire_ many persons of distinction and wealth." It is 
probable that shortly before coming here he was offered, 
and had urged upon him government appointment as a 
minister in the British colony at Providence Island. 

He was a talented preacher and his sermons had 
great effect. One speaks of "the remarkable results of 
his pious labors and of his being driven from his station 
by persecution, whence he fled into New England." "His 
ministry was attended with uncommon success." "The 
Lord blessed his preaching to the conversion of great 
numbers of his hearers." "He was an animated and fer- 
vent preacher." There are other verdicts of the same 
nature. 

He was a man who made and held warm personal 
friends and followers. "When he came into New Eng- 
land there came many considerable persons with him." 
"When he came into this country many good people fol- 
lowed him." This band of followers seemed to have re- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 35 

mained united through their affection for him. They were 
invited to various places in Massachusetts to settle. The 
records of Dedham show that land was apportioned there 
for Mr. Prudden and fifteen followers, which they did not 
accept. When they came to New Haven the same band 
seem to have settled together in and about the Hereford- 
shire quarter and together they removed here. Atwater 
says: "After they had belonged to the association 
for two years, after they had resided for some months 
in the new plantation, after some of them had built 
for themselves houses, and had left behind them the 
hardest of the hardships incident to such an enter- 
prise, that they separated themselves from their asso- 
ciates, removed to Milford and settled in a town by them- 
selves, with Prudden for their minister, evinces the 
strength and permanence of their attachment to the man 
whom they followed in leaving their homes in England." 
Thus came the Herefordshire part of the founders of the 
town; but the other part were drawn here by an attach- 
ment to him, which though not so old was none the less 
strong. 

During the waiting for this settlement with the spirit 
that, even if it were not recorded that he was "full of 
boiling zeal," would cause us to think him a zealous man, 
unwilling to be idle, he preached in Wethersfield, where 
again the attachment to him became so strong that many, 
leaving the homes they also had established, came from 
there to settle with him here. It is said: "Mr. Prudden 
brought with him to Milford, in addition to those who 
accompanied him from England, many who united them- 
selves with his fortunes in this country;" and again: "He 
was followed to Milford from Wethersfield by many, that 
they might enjoy his i)i(nis and fervent metlitations;" and 
still again: "He had made such an impression on the peo- 
ple of Wethersfield during his short stay there that many 



36 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

of his hearers went with him to Milford and were among 
the principal settlers of that town." It was thus that 
Gov. Robert Treat, John Astwood, Jasper Gunn, Rev. 
John Sherman and others came here. It was an evi- 
dence of the attachment of Mr. Sherman, a minister 
himself of no mean attainments, that when invited to 
become colleague and teacher here he declined out of 
"motives of delicacy" to Mr. Prudden. 

He was a public spirited man. Winthrop says: "He 
was useful in his place and of high esteem in the colony." 
He was elected one of the judges of the colony in 1840 
and continued until as is said: "He excused himself from 
serving any longer in that capacity." He is recorded as 
one of the deputies and spokesmen for the Milford 
colony in their successful protest against the settlement 
of Derby. We find in the records of New Haven colony 
invitations from the general court for him to preach on 
public occasions there, and when the request is made to 
settle the difference between Pequonnock Plantation and 
Milford, it is suggestively addressed to "Mr. Prudden and 
that plantation." His advice was sought and highly valued 
outside his own and the New Haven colonies. A letter of 
Mr. Davenport speaks of a council composed of the elders 
of the Hartford colony and Mr. Prudden of New Haven 
colony chosen to settle some of the differences of the 
Hartford colony. Mr. Hooker, in writing of a church 
trouble between minister and pieople, as far away as Ply- 
mouth, writes that both parties to the quarrel, officially 
and by private letter, invited Mr. Prudden to come to 
them; and adds: "I gave warning to Mr. Prudden to be- 
think himself what he did, and I know he is sensible and 
watchful." Cheever the famous schoolmaster who, 
when disciplined by the church at New Haven, had re- 
moved to Ipswich, writes to him for friendly counsel and 
to justify himself in his opinion. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 37 

He was a methodical man; whence it comes that the 
record in his own hand of the early establishment of this 
church preserves dates, that supply their loss at New Ha- 
ven and in other ways as well marke the records of this 
town a model — the first covenant of the infant colony of 
Milford, which he drew, being still preserved and read- 
ing as if, though divorced from it, there still rang in his 
ears the rituals of his English home and his mother 
church. 

That he was a man of thrift and business capacity 
is evinced by his will, which bequeaths a handsome prop- 
erty for those days, accumulated mainly in this country, 
and by the record that, "He had a better faculty than 
many of his cloth to accommodate himself to the difficult 
circumstances of the country so as to provide comfort- 
ably for his numerous family without indecent distraction 
from his study." 

The numerous family cannot be overlooked in our 
estimate of him. The wife who, when he died, reared 
the two sons and six daughters — the oldest only sixteen 
years old — to honor and success, sending one of the sons 
through Harvard to a long and influential ministry; and 
who later became the honored wife of Capt. Thos. Willett, 
prominent in the Plymouth colony, famed for his dealings 
with the Indians and the first mayor of New York; and 
who after his death became the wife of Rev. John Bishop, 
another of the pulpit lights of Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut — the children thus growing up to mingle with 
the best families of New England — must have been no 
small item in the life of the man and the community. 

The payment of fines for impecunious criminals and 
the use of his garden for the graves in the sadness of the 
earliest deaths hint at his kindheartedness. 

The establishment of this colony, not alone for po- 
litical independence, but to try the experiment of differ- 



^8 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

ent ideas of church pohty; his peculiar position with re- 
gard to the baptism of infants; his advanced notions of 
allowing others than church members to participate in the 
town government, the relinquishment of which was made 
a condition of union with New Haven, mark him as a man 
of individual, perhaps liberal ideas, quite likely one of 
the men a little tainted with the new theology of that 
day. 

He is spoken of as "the amiable and useful Prud- 
den." Hubbard says: "He was a man of great zeal, 
courage, wisdom and exemplary gravity in his conversa- 
tion. xA.nother says: "His course had been dutiful and 
its termination blessed," for we must remember that after 
only seventeen years of pastorate here he died at the 
relatively early age of fifty-six years. 

In the Memorial Hall at Hartford, among the num- 
bers of early clerical fathers of this state are selected 
three for special honors in a memorial window — Hooker, 
Davenport and Prudden — but of these Davenport had 
fifteen and Hooker five more years of life work than 
Prudden. Doubtless with a later autumn he might have 
shown even riper fruit. 

But the quality that not only his biographers, but 
what little of public record and correspondence re- 
mains give most prominence to in him, is that referred to 
in these words on the tablet, where Cotton Mather says: 
"He was noted for a singular faculty to sweeten, compose 
and qualify exasperated spirits, and to stop and heal all 
contentions, whence it was that his town of Milford en- 
joyed peace with truth all his days, notwithstanding," 
he mildly continues, as if the task had not been alto- 
gether an easy one, "some disposition to variance that 
afterwards broke out among them." Yes, he was pre- 
eminently a peacemaker — perhaps the divinest quality 
with which we can credit a man. "Blessed are the 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MII.KORD. 39 

peacemakers for they shall be called the children of 
God." 

He was greatly missed and mourned by the people 
here and elsewhere. "Mr. Priidden, of blessed memory," 
is the entry on your church record. The church foui 
years without a pastor, widowed as they termed it, is 
perhaps another way of indicating their sorrow. 
The churches in this colony, speaking there, as here 
in this epitaph, of his death being a loss not alone to this 
Church but to the churches, "are sensible of the afflict- 
ing hand of God in the death of Mr. Prudden;" and the 
refusal of the General Court to join with the Massachu- 
setts people in a .synod "because weakened by the death 
of Mr. Prudden," are other references to his loss. 

And so this tablet to him, your first pastor, is left 
with you with the request, that it may be suitably pre- 
served and cared for during the future of this building 
and its successors, so that the memory of him who took 
so prominent a part in its earliest moments may be pre- 
ser;ed in honor and esteem to its kitest hours. 



40 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

RESPONSE.. 

REV. J. A. BIDDLE, SOUTH NORWALK, CONN. 

To me has been assigned the most deUghtful and 
honorable service of accepting in the name of this Church 
these tablets that have been erected to the memory of its 
first four pastors: Peter Prudden, Roger Newton, Samuel 
Andrew and Samuel Whittlesey. The Church most 
gratefully receives them and reverently takes them under 
her care. She recognizes the generosity and admirable 
taste you have displayed. She is proud of your work and 
expresses her sincere thanks. 

Permit me then to proceed in a few words to char- 
acterize these revered men as they stand out before me. 
I have been a sympathetic student of their lives, 
their work and their times. Their honor is as sacred to 
me as to any other, even to those in whose veins their 
blood still pulsates. In future generations I only hope 
that I may have for my chronicler a man, who loves my 
memory as deeply as I love the memory of these great 
dead. 

It is a pleasant task to build the tombs of our 
prophets and garnish the sepulchres of our righteous. 
Our prophets ! Our righteous ! We may not love a liv- 
ing saint but we love to canonize a dead one. So we 
rejoice to do reverence to our saints. The principles for 
which they stood, for which they suffered, we applaud 
with all our hearts. How easy is this work, to honor the 
dead prophet! How hard it is to obey the voice of the 
living prophet ! Is it because the dead are so much better 
than the living ? I think not. For when the living are 
once dead we make haste to build them costly tombs. 
Nay, it is because the dead demand of us only applause, 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 4 1 

while the living demand of us obedience. And it is 
easier to applaud than to obey. 

But now with all joy to this easy, delightful service. 
Give honor to the dead. They are worthy. Raise the 
tablet of marble. Make it solid, enduring. We cannot 
make it as enduring as their work. Write upon the rock 
the name and deeds of those who lived in unfrequented 
paths of righteousness in those old days when many a less 
courageous spirit turned back. Teach the generations 
that still shall rise to revere their memory as we do now. 
I am the twelfth of this glorious band of apostles. 
A glorious band ! It is no slight honor to be numbered 
among them. A company in which no Judas is found. 
I com:i with gladness to help to raise the tablets and cele- 
brate their virtues. 

First of all we have a Peter. Peter. A rock. On 
this rock the Church is built. Dig deep into its history. 
You will find the rock. Two hundred and thirty-three 
layers of years cover this Rock from our sight. His 
grave no man knoweth. He is clean vanished from mor- 
tal eye. Like another Moses whom (iod buried, no man 
knoweth of his sepulchre until this day. He was a 
Rock Christ Jesus made him so. In his own life 
he sought to embody the simple principles of the 
Sermon on the Mount. That will make a rock of any 
man. Then he joined with six as goodly as himself to 
build a spiritual temple. Pillars th ey called themselves. 
Spiritual rocks I call them. Without a Pope or Bishop 
or Priest, untaught of men, but deeply taught of Jesus 
their only Pope or Bishop or Priest, they bail t this good- 
ly temple after the pattern shown to them in the Mount. 
It was founded upon a Rock. What powers of hell 
have stormed upon it since that day when the immortal 
Seven stood face to face with (lod and signed the cove- 
nant. But they have not prevailed. It was founded 



42 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

upon a Rock. Peter Prudden needs no sepulchre. This 
Church is his resting place. In you, beloved, does he 
still abide. 

He was no volatile disciple. Change his name a lit 
tie. Call him not Peter Prudden, but Peter the Prudent. 
A John in his spirit of love. Deep had he drunk of 
the Master's spirit in that great Puritan age, when Puri- 
tanism was a living power and not an ism or a sect or 
a form. He experienced in his own heart "the liberty 
wherewith Christ has made us free and would not be 
again entangled in a yoke of bondage." So he gave up 
the church of his fathers with all its glorious memories; 
and, like Elijah, gathered the unhewn stones and built 
again the simple church of Apostolic days. He wil- 
lingly gave up his place as Priest over a church 
and joined with other servants of the Master in a 
brotherhood, where all were equals because all were 
Priests. 

He was a Peter in courage. He did not merely 
think that thus a church of Jesus Christ ought to be 
formed, but without a pang he led his faithful band from 
the green fields of ''Merrie England" into this wilder- 
ness and here formed such a church, that has stood in 
power until this glad day. And it will stand in power so 
long as we are faithful to the spirit of those who laid its 
deep foundations on the word of God. 

He was a Moses in meekness. "A qualifier of ex- 
asperated spirits" is what old Cotton Mather calls him. 
"And in his day great peace prevailed." That is a worthy 
record. His was no easy task. He had exasperating spirits 
to deal with. His people were not all saints. But this 
chief of our apostles was mighty in spirit. He knew 
how to rule with the sword of the Spirit. They made 
him a magistrate once and placed in his hands the sword 
of the flesh. They thought he wielded it wisely and 



FIRST CHURCH OV CHRIsr, .MII.IORL). 43 

urged him to retain it. lUit lie was wiser than they and 
refused. His pulpit was liis throne. The Bible was his 
sword, and so with his sceptre of love he ruled a willing 
people and peace continued all his days. 

There are three scenes in the life of this man I would 
I could fi.K in your memory. 

First, when he stood beneath the shaile of a mighty 
tree at the head of the New Haven harbor on a beautiful 
April Sabbath, 1638; and preached one of the first sermons 
ever delivered along this shore. His te.\t reveals the spirit 
of his mission. "Thevcjiceof one crying in the wilderness, 
prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." 
Catch if you can the echo of that voice crying in the 
wilderness. Enter into the spirit of the man as he con- 
secrates himself to the work of [)reparing the way for the 
coming of the Lord. 

The second scene is more significant: — when on that 
August day, 1639, he stood up with William Fowler, Ed- 
mund Tapp, Zachariah Whitman, John Astwood, Thomas 
Buckingham and Thomas Welch to organize this Church 
of Christ in Milford. In that solemn hour, when the world 
was dominated by ecclesiastical tyranny, they simply ig- 
nored the errors of the past and began their work in these 
pregnant words: "We do give up ourselves wholly to ye 
Lord Jesus Christ, to be taught and governed by him in 
all relations, conditions and conversations in this world, 
avouching him to be our only Prophet and Teacher, our 
only Priest and Propitiation, our only King and Lawgiv- 
er." That, as a principle of church polity, is final. When 
men in all sincerity say: "We will organize a church with 
no priest but Jesus, no prophet but Jesus, no king but 
Jesus," they have got to the rock principles of the king- 
dom of God. The last word has been uttered upon the 
subject; and it only remains for men in faith to make that 



44 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

word a reality, and the kingdom of God is at once estab- 
lished. 

The third scene is upon the 8th of April, 1640, when 
Peter Prudden was ordained pastor of this new Church 
of Christ by his own brethren, Zachariah Whitman, Wil- 
liam Fowler and Edmund Tapp, who received their 
authority to do this holy work not from Pope, Bishop or 
Council, but from the Church in which all authority re- 
sides. 

So I leave this greatest of all our prophets. He fell at 
his post at last in the prime of life; and his fall, says Cot- 
ton Mather, "was like the fall of a pillar that made the 
whole fabric of the colony to shake." 



ROGER NEWTON 

Born in England 

Pupil and Son-in-law 

of Thomas Hooker of Hartford. 

One of the Founders and 

the first Pastors of the Church in 

Farmington 1645-1657. 

Installed Pastor of this Church 

August 22, 1660 and so continued 

until liis Decease June 7, 16S3. 



A good Minister of Christ Jesus 

nourished in the Words of the Faith 

and of the good Doctrine. 



It is a Brass Tablet, set in a i^olished Belgian black 
marble background. The inscription is in illuminated 
colors, surrounded with ornamental corners and lines en- 
graved on the brass tablet. The marble is 3 ft. 5 in. high 
and 2 ft. 10 in. wide. The brass tablet is 2 ft. 9 in. high 
and 2 ft. 2 in. wide. 

By the solicitation of Henry G. Newton, of New 
Haven, Miss Sarah Nelson Stowe, Mrs. Andrew D. Bald- 
win, of Milford, a very large number of the descendants 
of Rev. Roger Newton shared in the contributions nec- 
essary to furnish the tablet. 



46 25OTH ANNIVERSARV 

PRESENTATION. 

HENRY G. NEWTON. NEW HAVEN. 

Roger Newton was one of the original settlers of 
Farmington, Connecticut, and the first minister of the 
church in that town. From Rev. Thomas Hooker, foun- 
der of the Colony of Connecticut, he received instruc- 
tion in theology, and Mary Hooker, eldest daughter of 
Thomas Hooker, became his wife. "Lambert's His- 
tory of New Haven Colony" states — upon what au- 
thority I know not — -that he was educated at Harvard 
College. If this be so it must have been when Harvard 
was in its infancy. Like the churches in Milford and 
New Haven, probably in imitation of them, the church 
in Farmington was organized by seven men, of whom 
Roger Newton, the acting pastor, was one. Leaving 
Farmington in 1657, after twelve years service in the gos- 
pel ministry there, Roger Newton purposed returning to 
England. Strong adverse winds at the time of sailing 
led the master of the ship to conclude that, like Jonah of 
old, Mr. Newton was seeking to escape from the doing of 
the Lord's work; and, fearing lest he might otherwise be 
compelled to throw him overboard in mid ocean, he left 
him in Boston and sailed away. 

After the pastorate of Mr. Prudden in Milford a mes- 
senger was sent by the Church in Milford to Boston to 
seek out another pastor. Apparently he found Roger 
Newton, for it is recorded that "At a General Court held 
at Milford on the 9th of September, 1650, the town de- 
clared themselves by a full vote that if it please the Lord 
to bestow Mr. Newton upon us, and take up office, then 
they are willing to give him the house and home lot and 
the piece of upland beyond Dreadful Bridge" and other 
land. Earlv in 1660 Mr. Newton was in Milford. Aug- 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, Mil. FORD. 47 

ust 22, 1660, the Churc:li had attained its majority; aiul it 
suited well with the buoyant temper of a new and <^vo\\- 
ing country to choose the twenty-first anniversary c^f the ■ 
foundation of the Church for the installation of its sec- 
ond minister; and such Roger Newton remained for a 
quarter of a century. 

The Milford town records of the 17th century are 
lost, those only which concern the titles to real estate 
having been copied out and preserved. The freciuent 
grants of land made to Mr. Newton by the town may 
serve to show the estimation in which he was held. In 
casually turning over the leaves of the Probate records I 
noticed that the will of Zachariah Whitman, deceased in 
1666, begins: "I give to Mr. Newton five pounds." There 
may be many such. Roger Newton held to the faith and 
practice of the New England ministry of his day. Up- 
right and downright, he would none of the halfway cove- 
nant; he would not lower the standard for admission to the 
Church, yet he loved the Church and cared for it and dur- 
ing his ministry it abated nothing in numbers or inlluence. 
And so, a true representative of the early Connecticut 
pastors, Roger Newton lived and thrived, and added field 
to field, and four sons and three daughters were born to 
him; and their descendants, a great host, remain to this 
day. 

His last years were saddened by the loss of the wife 
of his youth, and a few days before his death he writes 
that "It has pleased the Most High to hold me under 
long and sore trial." He left an estate surpassed in value 
by few in those times. It was appraised at j£,(>^t>. Per- 
haps the estate of Peter IVudden, the first pastor, was the 
only one in Milford u\) to that time which had exceeded 
that amount. His will and the inventory are curious and 
instructive. Our forefathers seem to have had a kindly 
affection for their land and a tinge of romance makes. 



48 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

interesting the real estate records of that century. The 
land is not described as now, as a piece of land bounded 
north and west by highways, east by land of John Smith 
•and south by land of William Jones. Every field and 
valley and hillock and rivulet had its appropriate and of- 
ten poetic name. Like the others Mr. Newton loved his 
land; and the 150 acres, which he acquired as an original 
settler of Farmington, he retained till his death. He 
gave by his last will: "land in Dreadful Swamp;" "land 
at the West Noockes;" "land near a place commonly called 
^Deere's Delight;' " "land by the 'two mile brook;' " "the 
land between the two crooks in the Elder's Meadow;" 
"the new meadow playne;" "land by the path that goeth 
■over the round meadow brook;" "the new fields by the 
river;" "land at a place commonly called 'Bohemia.' " 
To Sarah Newton is given, "my three hour glasses;" to 
Alice Newton, "the spinning wheel which came from 
Windsor, and her implements about lace making." He 
recognized the right of a wife as against the unrighteous 
laws of our forefathers, and gave to all his daughters 
"those things which their mother desired they should 
have." The elaborate list of his wearing apparel, valued 
at 35 pounds, shows that he held to the custom of his 
times as to maintaining the dignity of his office. 

Ten minutes in a student's library suffice to indicate 
his tastes, his pursuits, his character. The library of 
Roger Newton was a marvel for his time, absolutely alone 
in the Probate records of the County in that generation. 
It proves him a student of the Word of God. Quartos, 
octavos, more than two hundred volumes in all, in an age 
when a Bible and catechism was an ordinary library and 
a score more of books a clergyman's. Commentaries, 
concordances, works on the cultivation of personal piety, 
all save a few classic authors cluster around the revealed 
word. Studious and devout, "a praying Aaron" he was 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil. FORD. 49 

called by a ct)ntem])orary, the 119th ]:)salni, with its one 
hundred and seventy-six declarations of love for the word, 
fitly expresses his character and life. Small wonder that 
his hearers, and their descendants and his, have held fast 
to the words of the faith and the good doctrine. 

The blessing of the patriarchs, the desire of godly 
men of that time and of all times, was granted to him, 
and the Lord gave to him a godly seed. There was 
Roger Newton, for thirty-five years a judge, whose epi- 
taph reads "Newton as steel, inflexible from right." 
There was Roger Newton the divine, for more than half 
a century pastor of the church of Greenfield, Mass. But 
it would be useless to attempt to particularize among the 
hundreds of his descendants, living and passed away. 
Lawyers, physicians, editors, (!v:c., are among them in 
considerable numbers. Of clergymen there are more; of 
typical New FLngland deacons a large company; and the 
God fearing, truth-loving men and women, scattered 
through the towns of our Christian republic, from Massa- 
chusetts Bay to the Golden Gate, going to meeting, sup- 
porting the ministry, jiroviding things honest in the sight 
of all men, are like the visible stars in the heaven for 
multitude, if not like the sand which is by the sea shore 
innumerable. They bear many names. The list of sub- 
scribers to this tablet, nearly seventy in number, all of 
them descendants of Roger Newton, contains the names 
of Allen and Anderson, Andrew and Baird, Beard 
and Baldwin, liisliop and Ikadley, Butler and 
Carrington, Clark and Church, Fenn and Gillette, 
(iunn and Kilbourn, Lovejoy and Merwin, Morris 
and Newton, Piatt and Shove, Stanley and Stow, Wait 
and U'ard. And all alike they honor the memory 
of him who was your secoml pastor. In the last 
document which he ever penned he wrote himself: ''Roger 



50 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Newton, pastor of the Church of Christ in Milford." 
There can be no higher, no hoher title. 

To the Church of Christ in Milford we, her children, 
bring greeting — from many a town, from many a church. 
Of the church of Christ in Durham — -whither Abjier 
Newton, grandson of Roger Newton, and Mary Burwell 
his bride remov^ed in 1725 — there are eighteen who bear 
the Newton name. Perhaps, I might say probably, an 
absolute majority of that church to-day are descendants 
of Milford ancestors. When we know as we are known 
we shall be astonished at the mighty multitude whom the 
Church of Christ in Milford has furnished to the world 
for the work of the Master. That Roger Newton, one 
of the great cloud of witnesses, by whom we are encom- 
passed this day, a good minister of Jesus Christ, nour- 
ished in the words of the faith and the good doctrine, 
being dead may yet speak, we present to you this tablet; 
and we pray you to remember, that first and pre-eminently 
he loved the Word of Clod. 



RESPONSE. 

REV. J. A. lUDDLE. 

After Elijah comes P^lisha. After Paul we must con- 
tent ourselves with Timothy. Elisha and Timothy are 
good men, but then they are not Elijah and Paul. We 
ought not to expect that they should be. But yet, when 
we have been accustomed to the picturesque figure of 
Elijah calling fire from Heaven and going up in a whirl- 
wind with chariots and horsemen of flame, the quite com- 
monplace work of Elisha is not so attractive. But Elisha 
has his place and work. And when once we get over the 
effect of the brilliant prophet, we rather like his less bril- 
liant but more o-enteel successor. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MII.FORI). 5 I 

So after Peter Priulden conies Roger Newton. Kng- 
lish born, like his predecessor, but only partly English 
bred. He studied at Harvard. Farmington, Conn., was his 
first parish. He may have been as strong a man as Prudden 
by nature, but he did not possess anything like the depth 
of experience that made Prudden so great. Newton was 
a "sound preacher," "a judicious speaker;" but in him 
was the lack of prophetic inspiration. 'J'hat fervor of 
soul, that is born not of learning or tradition, that comes 
not by laying on of hands but of deep experiences of life 
and personal communion with (iod, did not come with 
awful power upon this man who stood in Prudden's place. 
He could not melt rebellious wills and break stubborn 
hearts by the warmth of his appeals and the fiery torrent 
of his entreaty as Prudden, and the peace of the col- 
ony was disturbed by unruly sj^irits. In the changed 
conditions of society, it is doubtful [f Prudden could 
have secured the quiet of the town as he did in his day. 
The lava of puritanism was cooling off in the quiet pros- 
perity of the new colony. Men began to love the world 
more, now that they were free from persecution and had 
bread enough and to spare. The lofty aim and prophetic 
enthusiasm of the founders of the colony seemed alto- 
gether visionary to their more prosaic children, who found 
all their energy expended in clearing forests, building 
cabins and watching the Indian. The ''Seven Pillars" 
would have nothing less than the kingdom of saints. But 
their sons were content to divide the authority with the 
sinners of the colony. And then, as now, the sinners were 
not slow to take advantage of the concession. I dream 
sometimes of what Milford would be if the ''Seven I'illars" 
had been successful in establishing the rule of the saints. 
But it is only a dream. It was not to be so. Newton 
found that he could not kee[) up the lofty standard of his 



52 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

predecessors. It must have grieved him that he could 
not. 

With his generation the hope of Prudden, of estab- 
Hshing a real kingdom of God in Connecticut, vanished; 
and men were content if they could live a fairly comfort- 
able life after the manner of the world. Those were the 
days when men began to clamor for a halfway covenant. 
But halfway covenants were an abomination in the eyes 
of that elder generation. Roger Newton had too much 
of the spirit of Prudden in him to yield to such a de- 
mand. He held his ground at least in form. But it was 
a losing fight. The drift of the age was against him. 
To choose Jesus Christ only or to reject Jesus for Bar- 
abbas was not to the liking of the people. But to com- 
promise and keep both Jesus and Barabbas, to serve God 
and Mammon, pleased them well. For twenty-three 
fruitful years this steady, judicious man held his ground. 
He had done the work of Elisha well. Then through 
months of great agony, at last, on June 7, 1683, he ceased 
from his labors and entered into rest. If Prudden had 
been great in laying foundations Newton was equally wise 
in buildino- thereon. 



IN MEMORIAM 

SAMUEL ANDREW. 

Born in Cambridge, Mass., 1656 

Graduated at Harvard College, 1675 

Served as Tutor 1 679-1 684 

Third Pastor of this Church 1685-1738 

Rector of Yale College 1707-1719 

Died Jan. 24th, 1738. 



He was one of the principal 

Founders of Yale College, and one 

of the best Scholars of his time. 

While Rector he instructed the 

senior class in Milford. 



A man of exemplary holiness 

and unwearied labors; modest, 

courteous, and Ijcneficent. 



His tablet is of brass and is set on a polished Bel- 
gium black marble background with the inscription in il- 
luminated colors, surrounded with ornamental corners 
and lines engraved on the brass tablet. The marble is 3 
ft. 5 in. high and 2 ft. 10 in. wide. The brass tablet is 2 
ft. 9 in. high and 2 ft. 2 in. wide. 

Mrs. Adelia Elmer, assisted by Mrs. Lucrctia lUick- 
ingham, Mrs. Albertus Clark, Mrs. iJennis Smith, Mrs. 
Joseph Nettleton, Mrs. Owen Clark and Miss Josie Beach, 
solicited the gifts for the tablet from the numerous de- 
scendants of Rev. Samuel Andrew — one hundreil and 
nineteen in all having made some contribution. 'I'iie 



54 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

names of the donors are written upon a parchment at- 
tached to the back of the tablet. 

By special request the following interesting incident 
is here inserted. One afternoon, as the ladies were gath- 
ering for the regular meeting of the Benevolent Union, 
the pastor inquired of a few around him "Where are the 
many descendants of the former pastors, and why don't 
they honor their memory with suitable tablets ?" The 
words had no sooner been spoken, than Mrs. Adelia El- 
mer replied "I will give one dollar to start a fund for a 
tablet in memory of Rev. Samuel Andrew." Four others 
of his descendants were among the company and prompt- 
ly proffered the same amount. The enthusiasm was con- 
tagious and some descendants of Rev. Roger Newton, 
who were also present, resolved to honor his name in like 
manner. Hearing of the action taken by the friends of 
Revs. Newton and Andrew, Mrs. Henry C. Miles without 
delay signified her purpose to provide a tablet in mem- 
ory of Rev. Mr. Whittelsey. Thus simple and unex- 
pected was the beginning of the movement, in which so 
many afterwards became deeply interested. 



PRESENTATION. 

REV. HENRY G. MARSHALL, CROMWELL, CONN. 

Mr. Moderator and Friends: 

I regret exceedingly that this duty should fall upon 
me, especially as I knew nothing of it until I arrived in 
town last evening. I had supposed it was to fall to wor- 
thier hands. Had I known it before leaving home I 
might have brought with me some items concerning the 
Rev. Samuel Andrew, whom we honor to-day, which would 
have been of interest but which I cannot now recall. As 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST. Mil, FORI). 55 

one of his descendants I count it an high honor that I 
am permitted this day, on their behalf, to present to this 
ancient Church, of which he was so long the pastor, this 
tablet in his memory. 

Mr. Andrew was not, like liis predecessors in the 
pastorate of this Church, a "prudent" man and shrewd 
in the affairs of this world so that he could, as they, leave 
to his heirs a goodly amount of property and lands. It 
was especially noted of him, by the historian of that day, 
that "he entangled not himself with the affairs of this life, 
that he might please Him who had chosen him to be a 
minister." He was a close and indefatigable student, 
while by his kindly and generous spirit he was well cal- 
culated to bring and hold the people together. He was 
pastor of this Church for fifty-two years, making a longer 
pastorate than any other; and during this time there were 
more added to the Church than during the ministry of 
any other except that of Mr. Pinneo. More than five 
hundred were added to the Church in his ministry. 

It would seem from the fact that he was for some 
time the Rector or acting President of Yale College and 
that he was such a diligent student for so long a life, as 
if he, like so many of his contemporaries, would have 
left some writings as the result of his studies and the 
monuments of his learning. Yet so far as I know he has 
left nothing of the kind. He simply stood in his lot, a 
faithful pastor, not seeking for fame as an author. It is 
this fact which moves me to draw a lesson for the young- 
er generation of the present, which 1 would that they 
would remember as they look upon this tablet. We ren- 
der this honor to-day io goodness. His noblest record is 
that he was a holy man. As the stone in yonder ceme- 
tery declares "he was beneficent, never fond of this world." 
What we here commemorate, then, is/zc/ the man of fame, 
hv\\. \.\\(t good man. This then is the \.r\.\\.h, ^'Goodness is 



56 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Greatness; and let it be graven on your minds and 
hearts as enduring as this tablet of brass; and let it recur 
to your memory whenever you read this inscription to the 
memory of l\\& good man, the Rev. Samuel Andrew. 



RESPONSE. 

REV. J. A. P;iDDLE. 

Samuel Andrew was an American. He was born the 
year that Peter Prudden died. He belonged to an en- 
tirely new generation — a generation that deified the com- 
monplace and worshiped the respectable. The love for 
good form had largely taken the place of love for great 
life. It was ecclesiastical rather than spiritual. Enthus- 
iasm was discredited. Those were years of fruition. The 
terrible struggle of settling a wilderness was passed 
and prosperity was abundant. Eife had become easier. 
Prudden's vision of the kingdom of God had vanished, 
but in its place stood a delightful democracy of this 
world. In this the people found much content. They 
were so happy in gathering the good fruits their 
fathers had sown that they had hardly time in their re- 
joicing to break up new spiritual ground and sow for the 
future. 

Samuel Andrew was a perfect man of his time. Pie 
lived in his age entirely and was perfectly satisfied with 
the best elements of his age. He was born in Cambridge, 
Mass.; grew up in the atmosphere of a college town; was 
a student from childhood; by natural endowment was a 
man of superb intellectual power; and by training was 
equipped as well as his age and country could equip him. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 57 

He spared no pains to make himself a scholar of the first 
magnitude. He spent most of his time in his study; 
rarely visited or conversed with his people. He left all 
funerals and visitations of the sick to his ruling elder 
and deacons. In this he did not differ from many min- 
isters of his time. "He was well versed in history, the 
learned languages, and the sciences, as far as there were 
any sciences. But above all he was a theologian." 
Prudden was also a theologian. But his knowledge 
of God came to him by experience. He walked with 
God, and felt the fellowship of Jesus as a person, liut 
Andrew was a speculative theologian. God was to Iiim 
a term, Christ a word, the Trinity a puzzle, the Bible a 
theology. The kingdom of God which was so real to 
Prudden, and which he hoped to establish, was removed 
far away by the generation in which Andrew lived. It 
became a fairy land, to dream over and weave pleasant 
fancies about. 

Mr. Andrew was profoundly interested in the Say- 
brook Platform. Its theological statements and its ec- 
clesiastical systems of Associations and Consociations 
were much to his liking. By these he hoped to jireserve 
pure and undefiled religion in the colony. So he was 
great in the eyes of a generation who loved such things. 
The age loved him because he embodied its best thought 
and aspiration. He was learned, theological, ecclesiasti- 
cal, formal, religious. In his day people were very care- 
ful to join the church and present their children for bap- 
tism. The forms of religion were punctiliously observed. 
In that generation the halfway covenant became a fi.xed 
fact. The pastor became a town official and received a 
fixed salary from the town treasury. In his time the min- 
istry became practically a separate order, as nearly a 
priesthood as ])uritanism would admit. 

Mr. Andrew was a great ecclesiastic. As a judge 



58 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

upon ecclesiastical matters he was almost unrivaled. He 
was sent for far and near to settle ecclesiastical disputes. 
He was the embodiment of ecclesiastical and theological 
puritanism. He was a leader in the founding of Yale 
College and was acting President for many years. 

In his time ungodliness flourished in New England. 
Licentiousness and drunkenness increased. The records 
of the church give sad evidence of this. The wise men 
of his day — and he was among the wisest and best — 
sought to stem this current of immorality by erecting 
beautiful ecclesiastical and theological systems and ap- 
peals to state authority. Of course they failed. It is 
not by such method that the deep moral life of man is 
changed. We cannot wonder that Mr. Andrew and his 
contemporaries had great faith in their methods. We 
need not be surprised that they misinterpreted the awful 
voice of Jonathan Edwards that called out of the wil- 
derness the great cry of repentance. But we cannot but 
hold up his and their methods together to teach us the 
true and false methods of moral reform. In Mr. An- 
drew's time they seated people in the Church according 
to their position on the grand list. They fined a man 
five shillings for taking a seat in the wrong pew. This 
was to the taste of a generation that loved gentility and 
good form more than justice and the love of God. 

For over fifty years Mr. Andrew went his steady, se- 
rene way. No one could have done his work better than 
he did. His life was full of honors. His work was uni- 
versally praised. Read the inscription on his tomb and 
see how highly he was esteemed by the people of his 
time. He died in peace before the great flood came that 
made such sad havoc of the principal work of his life. 
If we are to judge of a man's life by the serenity, the 
honor, the praise and the immediate success it brings, 
we will account Mr. Andrew among the most blessed of 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, .MIIJORD. 59 

men. So doubtless we must judge him. But if we judge 
a man by his power to hft himself above his generation, 
to lay bare its weaknesses, to show the unrighteousness 
of what it most highly esteems, and to live like Edwards 
in perpetual martjTdom that he may impress his lofty 
ideal upon his people, then we will be more sparing of 
our praise of Mr. Andrew. For of this heroic, prophetic 
quality he possessed very little. He was the great 
ecclesiastic of our Apostolic band, and did his work mag- 
nificently well. He was sincerely himself, and what his 
hand found to do, he did with his might. So we honor 
ourselves in honoring him. 



IN MEMORIAM 

SAMUEL WHITTELSEY. 

A. M. 

AT YALE AND HARVARD, 

Whose virtues, piety and good deeds 

everywhere shine 

with peculiar kistre, and whose 

unceasing and faithful labors 

in sacred things for more than 

Thirty Years, 

among the inhabitants of Milford, 

justly entitle him to honor. 

He was born July roth, 17 13. 
Entered into Rest Oct. 22nd, 1768. 



It is a plain, highly polished Belgium black marble 
tablet, with corners cut out, and edges finely molded, 
with the inscription on the face in richly engraved, gilded 
letters. The marble is 3 ft. i in. high and 2 ft. 10 in. 
wide. 

Di ana M. Miles and Henry C. Miles, assisted by 
William Whittelsey Bull, Elizabeth \Velles, Eliza Talcott 
Wardwell, Susan Talcott Fisher, Maria Talcott Earned 
and Susan C. Clarke, donated this tablet to the Church. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 6 1 

PRESENTATION. 

HARRV C. C. MILKS, MILFCJRD. 

"Character survives the man who possessed it. It sur- 
vives his age, perhaps his country and his language. These 
in the lapse of time may dissolve and be forgotten, but 
an earthly immortality belongs to a great and good char- 
acter. History embalms it. It lives in its moral influence 
— in its authority — in its example and in the memory of 
the words and deeds in which it was manifested." Such 
are true and fitting words in which to describe the char- 
acter of that noble and pious man — Samuel Whittelsey, 
the fourth pastor of this historic Church of Milford, 
whose descendants I have the honor to represent. 

Of Mr. Whittelsey's ancestry we have authentic 
knowledge. His grandfather, John Whittelsey, is be- 
lieved to have been the only person of the name who 
ever emigrated to this country. He came to the United 
States from England when a child, about the year 1650, 
and became a citizen of Saybrook, Conn. He occupied 
many positions of trust and honor in his town and state. 
In 1664 he married the daughter of Gov. Dudley of Mas- 
sachusetts; and of eleven children Samuel, the youngest, 
was educated as a minister and settled in Wallingford in 
1709. Rev. Samuel Whittelsey was considered one of 
the most eminent preachers of the colony. For many 
years he served as a Fellow of Yale College aiijil in 1712 
married the daughter of President Chauncey of that in- 
stitution. 

In Wallingford, Ct., July loth, 17 13, was born their 
eldest son, Samuel, who subsequently became pastor of 
this Church. He early exhibited a studious nature and 
entered Yale College, from which he graduated with 
honors in 1729. Later he filled the position of tutor in 



62 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

this College for a period from 1732 to 1738. It was 
during his tutorship that he was invited to come to Mil- 
ford and settle in the work of the ministry as colleague 
pastor with the Rev. Samuel Andrew, who, becoming aged 
and infirm was unable longer to bear the burdens of- an 
active pastor's life. Mr. Whittelsey accepted the call, 
and giving up his position in Yale, came to Milford. 
Unfortunately his coming caused a religious commotion 
which destroyed that peace and tranquility the Church 
and town had so long enjoyed. A respectable minority 
of the members of the Church soon became dissatisfied 
with his preaching, alleging that he was an Arminian in 
his theology, that his preaching savored too little of 
Christian experience and that they were not edified by 
his sermons. AVhen the Ordaining Council came to- 
gether the minority appeared against him. But, on the 
other hand, his many staunch and true friends, among 
them his venerable father, the most influential man in the 
Council, earnestly urged his ordination. This influence 
finally prevailed though the matter was decided only by 
compromise. Accordingly on the Sth of Nov., 173S, Mr. 
Whittelsey was ordained pastor of the Milford Church. 
After these times of turmoil and excitement then fol- 
lowed a period of peace and quietness and for thirty 
years, until his death in 1768, Samuel Whittelsey labored 
as the honored and beloved pastor of his flock. He was 
possessed of a kind and charitable spirit and his good 
deeds were everywhere manifest. Faithfulness was a 
prominent trait in his character for he was unceasing in 
his labors for the welfare of his people. 

Mr. Whittelsey was also an eminent scholar, having 
attained the degree of Master of Arts at Yale and Har- 
vard. For more than a quarter of a century he shared 
alike the joys and sorrows of his people, and when at the 
age of 56 "he was removed from all earthly friends, du- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil. FORD. 63 

ties and honors" his loss was most deeply felt in the com- 
munity. 

It is recorded that the Whittelsey family has been 
pre-eminently a Christian one — its rich inheritance a 
good name; and from the union of Samuel Whittelsey 
with the granddaughter of that godly man, the Rev. 
Roger Newton, has descended good and honorable men, 
faithful to themselves, lovers of their race and servants 
of God. With a desire to perpetuate the name and 
worth of Samuel Whittelsey, who served in the sacred 
ministry of this Church so long and well, we, his grand- 
children and great grandchildren, present to you this 
tribute, believing that it will ever stand as a memorial of 
his goodness and to e.xhort us also to be faithful to our 
trust. 



RESPONSE. 

REV. J. A. niDDI.E. 



Samuel \\'hittelsey was born out of his time. Ed- 
wards and Whitfield had broken u|) the peace and seren- 
ity of that respectable age, and the notes of war were in 
the air. Religious commotion filled New England. A 
tremendous theological contest was going on. In nearly 
every town of the commonwealth the people were in the 
deep and dangerous excitement of religious strife. Com- 
munities were torn with dissension. Churches were di- 
vided by fierce (juarrels. Families were almost destroyed 
and the blessed peace was gone. Into tliis terril)le con- 
flict Mr. Whittelsey was thrown, not by his own will, or 
wish. He was by nature a man of peace, most lovable 



64 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

and loving, of pure and radiant spirit, of trustful affec- 
tion for his Heavenly Father. The very qualities, that 
would have made him a most delightful companion and 
friend, now in these troublous years unfitted him for his 
position as pastor of this great Church. He was a child 
of the former age of peace, and had his ministry been in 
that time it would have ranked with the foremost of the 
clay. He was lovely in spirit, "wonderfully gifted in 
prayer, devout, affectionate and well acquainted with 
mankind. His sermons were neat, clean and elegant, 
fine descriptions of the heavenly felicity and the happi- 
ness of the saints in the life to come." 

One would have thought that such a man and such 
a preacher would have suited the most exacting people. 
But in his time the very excellencies of his style and the 
felicities of his descriptions were an offense. It was an 
age of reformation, of deep conviction of sin, of awful 
discontent. The heart of New England was stirred as 
of old and men were crying for realities. The judgment 
of God seemed imminent, and they asked with bated 
breath, What must I do to escape ? At such times the 
deeply earnest soul finds no joy in well rounded periods 
and felicities of speech. I have no doubt that his ina- 
bility to satisfy all his people was a painful surprise to 
this saintly man. To his pure, sweet spirit the times must 
have seemed sadly out of joint. For multitudes turned 
away from his neat, clean, polished sermons, and his trans- 
porting descriptions of heavenly felicity, to listen to 
some rough man who murdered the King's English, and 
shook his fist over terrified crowds in his denunciation of 
sin. But the saintly Whittelsey in his innocence of the 
world's deep sin, did not or could not see how far from 
God man is. He never felt himself hopelessly sinful, ab- 
solutely lost, a deep damnation yawning at his feet. He 
could not conceive how other men could feel it. But 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MU.rORD. 65 

Other men have felt it. Awfully hard it pressed ui)on 
them. They felt it in his day. Oh then fur one hour of 
Peter Prudden ! How he would have commanded the 
storm and silenced the troubled sea ! 

But the years of the sweet spirited Whittelsey were 
troubled years. He saw and felt the storm, but he lacked 
the power to still it. In his time the old Church was rent 
in two, and during all his over thirty years of ministry- 
neighbors fought each other and would not even sit down 
at the table of the Lord together. How he bore all this 
we may easily imagine I How it cut him to the heart ! 
What years of pain they must have been ! The 
record of his time is lost. It is just as well. For 
they must have been a sad record to him. But yet we 
know that by the years of battle the tide of immorality 
was stayed, the growth of formalism was checked. Men 
grew weary of the halfway covenant and hungered for a 
deeper knowledge of God and a simpler faith in him. 
His loving spirit went back too early to that heavenly 
rest he knew so well how to describe and for which he, 
no doubt so often longed. He fell at his post in the 
prime of life, in the 54th year of his age. 



REV. SAMUEL WALES, 1 770-1 782. 

My part is not complete without a word in memory 
of two others of this sacred band. Samuel Wales was 
happy in that he was born in an age with which he was 
in closest sympathy. He knew his generation and his 
generation gladly accepted him as its prophet. If any loved 
to hear of righteousness, temperance and a judgment to 
come, Samuel Wales could gratify them. He was a man 
of very much more than ordinary abilities; was born in 



66 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

a parsonage, and educated at Yale, in which institution he 
spent many of his later years as pastor of the college 
church. He was a magnificent preacher, equal to any of 
his time in Connecticut. In him we see the great spirit 
of puritanism revived but in bonds to a theological -and 
ecclesiastical system. He had the spirit of Prudden but 
not the liberty of Prudden. His life was a life of con- 
science. Prudden's was a life of love. Wales possessed 
greater natural endowments than Prudden, and could he 
have experienced the deliverance from all trammels in 
Christ Jesus, his career would have been a magnificent 
success. He was successful. But his life was conscien- 
tiously sad. He was Puritanism bereft of its joy. His sad- 
ness terminated in insanity. "Of the average hight, with 
a hazel eye, a highly intellectual face, a marvelously ma- 
jestic and awe-inspiring presence, possessed of real ge- 
nius and a voice of deep tone and commanding, which 
was used with remarkable skill, it is no v/onder that he 
ranked with the greatest preachers of his day. But to 
me he is the most pitiful of all who have been pastors of 
this Church. A giant in chains. A believer in the abso- 
lute sovereignty of God, without the faith to cast him- 
self joyfully upon the omnipotence of that sovereignty. 
Deeply conscious of his own sinfulness, and of the ab- 
solute holiness of God, yet with no joy in the mercy of 
God, who washes away all stains and reconciles us unto 
himself. The law of God was above him. His sharp 
conscience was in him. The fear of disobedience and 
the sense of unworthiness made his life as sad as human 
life can be. Yet he knew not that he was sad. His brave 
spirit cheered him to hope. But his life ended in dark- 
ness. 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRISl', MH.rORI). 67 

RHV. WILLIAM LOCKWOOD, 1784-1797. 

Win. Lockwood is most worthy of remembrance, 
the son of a minister, a graduate of Yale. It was not 
his fault but his misfortune that his ministry here was not 
very successful. He was a man of feeble health. He 
came to a parish where the work was not light. He was 
a man of only moderate ability, yet he followed one of 
the foremost preachers of the state. He began his min- 
istry just after the war of Independence, and felt all the 
evil influences that accompany such a period. It is not 
to be wondered at that with such obstacles his ministry 
was a comparative failure. He was simply a good man 
in the wrong place, and when the people grew too restive 
and asked to be relieved of his presence, he had the grace 
to go in peace, and take the blessing of a united church 
with him. This one act is sufficient to make me believe 
that he had the elements of a first rate saint in him. All 
accounts agree in giving to this man many excellencies 
of character. And when we know that his health was 
bad, the work was heavy, the old three decked church 
was no ea.sy place to speak in, and finally that the society 
pestered^him by not promptly paying his salary; but that 
amid all these trials he bore himself like a Christian, I 
am ready and proud to accredit him with all the excel- 
lencies that should belong, and I believe have very gen- 
erally belonged, to the pastors of this First Church of 
Christ ix Mii.ford. 



REV. BEZALEEL PINNEO. 

1767 1849 

He graduated at Dartmouth College. 

Pastor of this Church 1796-1849. 

He baptized 1204, 

Received on profession 600, Buried 11 26. 

He was eminently Discreet, 

Faithful and Successful. 

His first American Ancestor was a Huguenot Refugee. 



The tablet is of polished, light gray, Knoxville mar- 
ble, 3 ft. T in. wide and 2 ft. high, with projecting, square 
corners, chamfered edges, inscribed without color and 
mounted on a background of polished, pink, Knoxville 
marble 3 ft 6 in. wide and 2 ft. 5 in. high. 

The tablet was the gift of H. O. Pinneo and other 
children and ijrandchildren of Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 69 

PRESENTATION. 

ALFRED \V. PINNEO, SON OF H. O. PINNEO, TREAS. AM. 
CONG. UNION, NEW YORK. 

It is indeed a very malignant wind that blows no one 
good; and religious persecution is often thought such a 
tempest. When Saul of Tarsus made such desperate 
efforts to stamp out the torch of faith in Jerusalem, he 
little knew they were destined to act like Balaam's curse 
and light an hundred altars to the Crucified where one 
had burned before. Romanist persecutions in France 
drove the Huguenot refugees to different lands, among 
them Jaques Pignaud, ancestor of Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, 
seventh pastor of this Church 

His family name, originally Del Pino, Italian for the 
Pine Tree, was quite indicative of his appearance, tall 
and erect, a pine from the New England forest, he is 
doubtless remembered by some present. A near "family 
connection of his, William Williams, was one of the im- 
mortal signers of the Declaration of Independence, while 
his father and brothers were more actively engaged in 
our memorable war, the former as captain and the latter 
as soldiers. Mr. Pinneo educated many for the ministry, 
among them Nettleton, the great revivalist. Sweet was 
the old time relationship of master and pupil which fos- 
tered the latter's individuality. He was then in no dan- 
ger of being run through an intellectual machine shop, 
or turned loose upon the world bearing a theological 
trade-mark. 

The celebrated Dr. Johnson on being told that some 
ministers did not think their calling a difficult one, replied 
that if they didn't he was sorry for them. Many of us 
have since learned that it is a difficult thing to be faith- 
ful to conscience and a sense of duty in any calling. .'VU 



70 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

that is purely personal in any life is sure to die; men are 
immortal to us only in their works and then but by sac- 
rificing almost all the world holds dear, thus illustrating 
our Lord's words "Whoso loseth his life for my sake shall 
find it." 

In a nobler sense than the purely superstitious, places 
are haunted by the spirits of those who made them re- 
markable. Who does not think of our own sweet spirit- 
ed Irving when sailing up the Hudson whose beauties he 
painted, whose legends he wove into golden wreaths in 
story? Well might the spirits of the departed fondly 
yearn over the scene of their earthly labors; and I fancy 
that the eyes of that dear old pastor are lovingly bent 
upon us, his descendants and his successors, as we cele- 
brate to-day our triumphs and thank God for our bless- 
ings. 

It would ill become us to indulge in any fulsome 
praise of our revered grandparent, but we should be alike 
insensible to the blessings of a Godly parentage and 
wanting in feeling if we did not hold him in fondest re- 
membrance for his faithful pastorate here during fifty- 
three years of an eminently useful life and successful 
ministry. In behalf of the children and grandchildren 
of the Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo, I present this Church a sim- 
ple, and I trust, appropriate tablet to his memory; of such 
was it written, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord 
and their works do follow them." 



RESPONSE. 



REV. DAVID B. COE, HON. SEC V A. H. M. S., NEW YORK. 

It has been made my pleasant duty to announce to 
the donors of the tablet that has just been unveiled, the 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MII.FORD. /I 

acceptance of it by the nicJiibers of this Church, and 
their heartfelt gratitude for it. Their pleasure in the re- 
ceipt of it is enhanced by the fact that it is the gift of 
cherished friends, who, like themselves, were dedicated 
to God in baptism within these walls, instructed in divine 
things from this sacred desk, and welcomed to the house- 
hold of faith at this sacramental table. Ikit the gift is 
valued chiefly as being an appropriate and permanent 
memorial of the honored and saintly pastor whose 
name it bears. 

The first si.v pastors of this Church were of Eng- 
lish extraction. Two of them were born in England and 
belonged to the noble company of the I'ilgrim Fathers. 
The other four, though born in this country, had the 
blood of the Pilgrims in their veins, and the principles of 
the Pilgrims in their hearts. Mr. Pinneo was of French 
extraction and had the blood of the Huguenots in his 
veins; than which no better blood was ever brought to 
these shores. His great grandfather, James Pineau, (for 
thus his name was written,) belonged to the great army 
of refugees from the bloody persecution that followed 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Among them 
were some of the most illustrious men whose names adorn 
our national annals. Bezaleel Pinneo was born in Leb- 
anon, Conn., July 28, 1769, was graduated at Dartmouth 
College in 1791, and installed pastor of this Church, Oc 
tober 26, 1796. 

The prominent features of his character and minis- 
try are better known to many who hear me than they are 
to me. Some of you sat for years under his preaching; 
but his active labors had ceased when mine began. Vet 
I did know him well, as a man,asa Christian, as a friend, 
and especially as a friend to me. Tiiat is, I knew him 
by experience — the best sort of knowledge. And as my 
intimate relations to him then have become the occasion 



72 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

of my speaking to you now, I shall be pardoned, I trust, 
for making this reference to them. I recall with much 
distinctness, and vvith some emotion, my first entrance 
and welcome to his dwelling, which afterward became my 
home for a period. It was in the summer of 1840 — forty- 
nine years ago. My father, a short time before, had been 
called suddenly to his final rest. His family were scat- 
tered, and there was not a spot on earth that I could call 
my home. But I was mxade to feel at once that I was in 
a second home, with a second father. As a father, rather 
than as a colleague, I ever regarded him. From his rich 
stores of wisdom and knowledge, accumulated by an ex- 
perience of forty-four years in the ministry, 1 was per- 
mitted to draw at pleasure; and I did draw freely. To 
his hearty sympathy, his judicious counsel, his generous 
assistance, and the serene beauty of his daily life, I was 
indebted for much of the pleasure and success which at- 
tended mv short ministry here; and I rejoice that I have 
this unexpected opportunity to acknowledge, in this pul- 
pit and in this presence, a debt which I did not and could 
not pay. 

This Memorial Tablet sketches in four words an 
outline of Mr. Pinneo's character and ministry: — "Emi- 
nently DISCREET, FAITHFUL AND SUCCESSFUL." His 

keen penetration, his sound and cautious judgment, his 
practical sagacity — in a word, that invaluable but inde- 
finable endowment which we call coinnion sense, contrib- 
uted more than any or all of his other natural gifts to 
the peace and fruitfulness of his ministry, and to the con- 
tinuance of it through the long period of fifty-three years. 
"Eminently faithful." So the Tablet testifies. So the 
whole community testified, when I was associated with 
him. So the remnant of his congregation who continue 
to this day would testify, I am confident, if they should 
testify at all. His time, his talents, his acquirements, his 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, AHLFORD. 73 

influence — all that he was and all that he had were em- 
ployed in the work that (lod had given him to do. Some 
things which some pastors do, nowadays, he did not at- 
tempt; for he had read and had evidently adopted the mot- 
to: " This one thing I do." And he did it faithfully, and with 
all his might. "Eminently successful," the Tablet adds, 
and the records confirm the statement. There were no 
great excitements under his preaching, for he was not a 
sensational preacher, nor a very impassioned preacher. 
He was a logical preacher, an instructive preacher, a bib- 
lical preacher. He did not seek to produce excitements, 
but to commend himself to every man's conscience in the 
sight of God. And there were frequent revivals, some 
powerful revivals, during his ministry; and the yearly aver- 
age of admissions to the Church was greater than it had 
ever been before. Moreover, his style of preaching was 
peculiarly adapted to prepare, and it did prepare the 
soil and plant the seed for harvests which sprang up 
and were gathered after his active ministry ceased. Of 
about one hundred and fifty members who were added 
to the Church as fruits of the memorable revival of 1843, 
more than eighty being received on a single Sabbath, a 
considerable number, as I believed then, and still believe, 
were the fruit of seed sown by his hand. 

But it was not in the pulpit alone, nor among his 
flock alone, that the results of his ministry were seen. 
In the dwellings of the more than three hundred families 
of his congregation, in the schools, the workshops, the 
streets, everywhere, his benign influence was felt. Such 
a ministry as he exercised among you for forty-four years, 
such a life as he lived among you for fifty-three years, 
could not but leave an impress upon this community 
which will not be effaced to the end of time. "He being 
dead yet speaketh." He speaks, and will continue to 
speak, from the lips of that silent but eloquent tablet, to 



74 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

successive congregations of worshipers in this sanctuary 
and its successors for centuries to come. He speaks, and 
will continue to speak, through the lips and li'/es of mul- 
titudes who have gone from this church to churches in 
its vicinity, and in distant parts of this land, and -in 
other lands, carrying with them and transmitting to others 
the sacred lessons which they learned from his lips. The 
streams of influence which such a man sets in motion do 
not cease to flow when he dies. They are living streams, 
and they never cease. They are like the brook which 
Tennyson represents as singing on its way: 

"Men may come and men may go. 
But I go on forever." 



IX mi: MORI AM 



REV. JONATHA?^ BRACi:, \). D. 



Pastor of this Church 
1845 to 1863. 



He Came and Ministered 
unto us. 



'In tlie Cross of Christ 
I glorv." 



The tablet is made of fine, Beli^ium black marble, 
highly polished, in the form of a scroll standing out in 
full relief and resting on a plain background. There is 
a brass tablet on the face of the scroll, with the inscrip- 
tion engraved on it in illuminated colors. 

The tablet was the gift of Mrs. A. A. Pattou, 
Yonkers, N. Y., daughter of Rev. Dr. Brace. 



76 2 5CTH ANNIVERSARY 

PRESENTATION. 

ALBERT BRACE PATTOU. 

Mr. Moderator and Dear Friends: 

I esteem it a great privilege to be present with you 
to-day, and to participate, though it be in a small de- 
gree, in the celebration of this your 250th anniversary. 
It is also my pleasure to ask your acceptance of a tablet 
in memory of my revered grandfather, Jonathan Brace, 
who for the long period of eighteen years went in and 
out among you a faithful and devoted pastor. His life 
work was pre-eminently for and with this First Church 
of Christ in Milford; and its spiritual welfare and pros- 
perity were uppermost in his heart's affection, not only 
during the period of his ministry among you, but in the 
many years that followed his retirement to his native 
city. 

The Tablet is presented to you by my mother, Mrs. 
A. A. Pattou, of Yonkers; and it is offered in the hope 
that it may become a cherished memento in the hearts 
of those here, who have loved him and in whose mem- 
ory there still remains an echo of his voice. 



RESPONSE. 

REV. FRANK L. FERGUSON. 

It is a very delicate task, I am asked to assume, to 
attempt any adequate response to these words of pre- 
sentation; for many of you still cherish with great fond- 
ness the memory of your long and intimate acquaintance 
with him, to whose name this elegant tablet pays most 
worthy honor. There are a goodly number of you, who 



KIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MU.FORD. 77 

looked up to the esteemed Dr. Brace in the years of your 
youth or maturity, as your trusted, spiritual teaciier; and 
by his persuasive words you were encouraged to seek the 
experience of redemption, and to enter into covenant 
with this Church of Christ. No words of mine can just- 
ly portray the e.xcellent character of him you knew so 
well, or can serve to increase the respect in which you 
still hold him in an undiminishing degree. 

It must be a very rare event in the world's history, 
that can exceed in importance a long pastorate in a large 
church. It is a dignified and responsible olifice, wliich 
calls one to preside over the affairs of a nation; it is a high 
distinction to be ranked, as a president of a famous uni- 
versity, an illustrious author, a renowned inventor, or a 
discoverer of a continent; but can there be any other po- 
sition with more far-reaching purposes and results, than 
that of the minister of the Gospel, who stands before a 
community for a quarter or half century molding its 
higher life, comforting its sorrow, rebuking its sins, and 
bearing to it continually the glad tidings of a glorious 
immortality? I cannot pay any higher tribute to the es- 
teemed memory of Dr. Brace, than to say that for a score 
of years he stood in this pulpit, as the prophet of the 
Lord, the messenger of peace and good-will, the apostle 
of the truth of redemption and eternal life. He was a 
frank, fearless and able preacher. He had deep and 
positive convictions of truth, and sought to burn them 
with fiery eloquence into the hearts of his hearers. A 
man of very marked piety and christian consecration, 
he knew how to awaken the spirit of devotion in tlie 
bosoms of others, and to clear away all embarassing dif- 
ficulties. Having been privileged with such a ministry 
for many years, it is no wonder that many of you assoc- 
iate with the tones of Dr. Brace's voice many of yf)ur 
most pleasing and hallowed recollections. 



78 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

His victorious career, as pastor of this church, was 
that of a christian champion. With unusual vigor he 
wielded the weapons of spiritual warfare. He was 
mighty in work and in life. No remark is more often 
heard, in the course of my parish visiting, than that in 
the days of Dr. Brace, it was not only unpopular, but 
considered decidedly immoral to be unnecessarily absent 
from the House of Worship on the Lord's Day. All the 
people honored him, and all the children stood in awe of 
him. 

He had a very methodical manner of thought and 
life, and adhered most strictly to it. At a certain min- 
ute he arose in the morning; he always sat down at the 
table for his meals at a certain minute; he took his daily 
walk around the square at a certain minute; he went in- 
to the pulpit and met all his engagements on the second. 
His infie.xible method of sermonic preparation was fol- 
lowed with such minute precision, it is said by one who 
knew his record well, that Dr. Brace never delivered a 
poor sermon in his life. The eloquent words, which fell 
from his lips during the bloody struggle of the civil war, 
aroused a patriotic enthusiasm in this whole community, 
and stimulated many consecrated youth to go out from 
this communion to bear the sword and to die for their 
country. 

When we pass from his pulpit to his household ad- 
ministrations, the value of his worth and memory is even 
enhanced. He did not visit frequently the homes of his 
parish — his devoted and amiable wife assumed almost 
entirely the responsibility of social calls — but when he 
did go among his people, it was with the Apostolic pur- 
pose to preach Christ. Being always possessed by this 
spirit, he did not allow his dignified and reserved man- 
ners to render the poorest and lowliest uncomfortable in 
his presence. Though sturdy as the oak in times of 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORD. 79 

Storm, he found his chief deUglit in the gentler charities 
of the heart. His touching tenderness was as character- 
istic, as his superior strength. His gravity of character 
did not forbid his descent to the ordinary companionships 
of Hfe, or restrain the flow of his large sympathy for suf- 
fering humanity. He, who held imperial sway over the 
minds and hearts of his crowded congregation, went with 
all the fervor of pastoral affection into the homes of this 
parish to pray and weep with all in their seasons of grief 
and bereavement. The influences of his prosperous min- 
istry continue with us and the abundant fruits of his la- 
bors we are still gathering. His best and most enduring 
memorial is written on the hearts of you, who are still 
living witnesses in this church to the convincing power 
of his teachings and the majestic splendor of his relig- 
ious life. 

In behalf, therefore, of the many who are here to-day 
and delight to call Dr. Brace their best beloved pastor; 
in behalf of as many more, to whom he administered no 
less acceptably in their joy and sorrow; and especially in 
behalf of this church, which he loved so well and served 
with extraordinary devotion, 1 now desire to congratulate 
the donor of this memorial tablet on its exquisite beauty, 
and to assure her of the profound gratitude of all the 
members and friends of tliis church for tiie worthy gift, 
with which she has chosen to honor this sanctuary and to 
commemorate the distinguished services of her father for 
nineteen vears in this communitv. 



LETTER 



REV. JAMES W. HUBBELL, MANSFIELD, OHIO. 

Sitka, Alaska, July 25th, 1889. 

My Dear Christian Friends: 

I regret exceedingly my inability to be present at the 
250th anniversary of the dear old Church in Milford and 
speak upon the theme kindly assigned me by the anni- 
versary committee. But a trip to Alaska had been ar- 
ranged for me previous to the invitation and so I am de- 
nied what would be to me a great pleasure to be present 
and participate in the services. It is an occasion of un- 
usual interest to any one, even a stranger, to contemplate 
the completion of two and a half centuries of the life 
and v/ork of a Christian church, but when that church is 
one with which you have been identified, to which you 
have given your heart and your life, a church which has 
been the scene of "sweet communion, solemn vows and 
hymns of love and praise," there is associated with it an 
interest and an enthusiasm of no ordinary character. 
Hence it is that I regret exceedingly, for my own gratifi- 
cation, not being able to sit with you in the glow of the 
past, and mingle with you in the memories of the good 
old days, which are forever past indeed, but which leave 
behind them blessed influences, and which live on in ful- 
ler and grander life in the deeds and thoughts of those 
who survive. 

The 2ist of September next will be the 25th anni- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. Si 

versary of my ordination as pastor over this church. 
Succeeding Dr. Brace, after his long pastorate of eighteen 
years or so, I found myself in my youth and inexperience 
in the charge of the then largest country church in the 
state, numbering 576 members, with its manifold claims 
in both pulpit and parish work. I recall with grateful re- 
membrance the forbearance exercised toward nie and the 
many acts of kindness of which myself and my family 
were the recipients. 

There were two or three interesting events in the his- 
tory of the church during my pastorate of nearly five 
years to which I will briefly refer. First there was a re- 
vival of religion, marked in its character and in the pow- 
er of it, which brought a large accession to the member- 
ship, and which was an incident in a progressive work of 
grace, manifest especially in the largely increased at- 
tendance upon all the services, so filling the sanctuary 
that an enlargement of the church was necessary, and at 
about the same time the parsonage was purchased and 
fitted suitably for the pastor's use. I want to bear testi- 
mony to the ready response of the people to every pro- 
posed change that looked toward improved methods. 
The adoption of the Songs for the Sanctuary as a new 
hymn book, superseding the one long in use, was the sign 
of the willingness of the people to take an advanced step 
in any direction that seemed wise and necessary. Con- 
servative and loyal to "the traditions of the elders" and 
yet sensible, progressive, looking after the welfare of the 
children, never feeling that they had already attained or 
were already perfect but pressing on; antl when I have 
had the privilege of visiting you from time to time 1 have 
found you still pressing on, loyal to truth and to God» 
standing by the old confession of faith which for two and 
one-half centuries has been tiie sure foundation and bul- 
wark on which the church has grown and been blessed, 



82 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

and yet ever acknowledging the faith anew, confessing it 
with its new applications and environments, demanding 
fresh statements and new enforcements of its claims upon 
the heart and life. With s uch a progressive orthodoxy, 
conservative, evangelical, earnest, consecrated, the old 
church still bears on her smiling", peaceful face, the beauty 
and sign of youth; she wears the strength and vigor of 
age, and as long as the centuries last may she continue 
to be "fair as the moon, bright as the sun, and mighty as 
an army with banners." 



FOUNDATIONS LAID BY OUR ANCESTORS, 



REV. A. J. I.VMAX. !?ROOKl,VX, X. Y. 

I regret that I cannot be jiresent in person to wit- 
ness the celebration which shall i)ut tlie quarf.er-niillcn- 
nial wreath on the spire of the old First Church ot Mil- 
ford — the church one of whose more recent titles to 
consideration and honor is the fact that it bore so patient- 
ly for four years with the crudities of my own first 
pastorate, w^hen I entered its service a boy of twenty 
three. Twenty years have gone since then, but nothing 
since has obscured the memory of that first year at Mil- 
ford. You were very indulgent to those early experiments 
of mine. I remember my first impression of your spacious 
and attractive church, (though the pulpit did somehow 
seem to be at the wrong end.) I remember the large 
iind responsive congregation. Can I ever forget my first 
walk to Wheeler's Farms, and the eight separate invitaiions 
to "'stop for supper" which I received — half of which I 
believe I accepted ? Can I ever forget my first experi- 
ence in housekeeping and \.\\q. fourteen '■'• sparenbs'' \.\yA\. 
were hanging at one time in my cellar, as a mcnii-nto of 
the kindness of my parishioners? Can I ever forget my 
friend the sexton of the church in those days, and his 
original and startling opinions in theology, \]\\\z\\ he used 
to astonish me with, while he and I were waiting for the 
congregation on ramy days ? Can I forget the Choir and 



84 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

the Music Committee ? Both the Choir and tlie Music 
Committee knew their own minds, I remember, better 
than they did each other's, twenty years ago. Can I ever 
forget the quiet church-yard, the burial-place and the 
faces of the valiant and beautiful, — old men and -little 
children — that in those four years I saw hidden from 
sight forever, behind its grassy curtains? 

You have done well, brethren of the church, and citi- 
zens of the town, in that you have associated these two 
occasions, — the civic celebration of your Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary as a Town, with this special 
celebration of your own Two Hundred and Fiftieth An- 
niversary as an organized church. In New England 
state and chiiych are tiuo not one, yet they are one in fel- 
lowship and in practical harmony. What, in a word, is 
the philosophy of the early New England civilization ? 
It is this, that the primitive New Englander believed in 
and set up four institutions — the Church and the School 
the Court Room and the To7un Meeting. These four 
were established, separate and independent, yet harmo- 
nious, — on the four corners of every town plot and vil- 
lage square in New England. The glory of primitive 
New England lay in its conception of what was meant by 
a man. A man stood, not as a lay figure, to hold up the 
trappings of kings, or echo the decisions of priestly 
councils, but a man stood for himself, sole and alone 
before the Almighty God; and therefore he stood for 
four things — iowx freedoms. First, Freedom of conscience, 
to worship God in his own way. Second, Freedom of in- 
tellect, to be instructed and investigate and judge. Third, 
Freedom of civil law, to hiive the right of open trial — in 
a public court room before a jury of his peers. Fourth 
Freedom of political suffrage, to choose his own rulers 
and to enact his own laws. The fruit of these four free- 
doms is Modern Protestant civilization, in which each 



FIRST CHURCH OF' CHRIST, MH.I'ORD. 85 

man enjoys the right and the privilege to shape his own 
course in Hfe, and, recognizing no class harrier, to rise 
as high as his own ability and energy may carry him. 
This glory of simple independent manhood, expressing 
itself in these four corner ideas and institutions, was the 
great radical conception which shone on the Plymouth 
snows and governed the development of all the early 
settlements in Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

The logic of New England, then, insisted up(Mi these 
four institutions and we may say that they were built at 
the four corners of the Milford Green. First, A Church, 
Protestant — therefore logically both reverent and tolerant. 
Second, A School, free and common to all rich and poor. 
Third, A Court, where every man had the right of trial, 
and of tcial by jury. Fourth, A Toivn Hall, where every 
citizen had the right of free speech and a free ballot. 
This is the true " Big Four " — the grand quartette of 
Western civilization. This is the grand historic Quar- 
tette of New England, — and I for one do not see, how, 
any man calling himself a New Englander, can fail to 
love and support any one of the four. Each of the four 
is necessary. Each is separate — and New England in- 
sists upon keeping them separate — all four are in harmo- 
ny. They balance each other. The four subsist, not in 
a mechanical union, l)ut in a vital and noble cooi)eration. 
Never must either one of the four become merely subser- 
vient to the others. If each is faithfully maintained, 
then four square — church, school, court and popular 
suffrage, they can defy and master the world. 

It is on these four pillars — and corner stones — that 
your town life and church life were established in the 
early days. I therefore beg to send you, both as men of 
the church and as man of New E^ngland, my congratu- 
lations on this double anniversary. May the (jld elms 
only be succeeded by others still larger and fairer. May 



86 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

the old men be succeeded by children yet stronger and 
nobler. May the old church be continued in new move- 
ments — still more grandly, faithfully and wisely philan- 
thropic. May the old Milford blossom from year to 
year into a fuller fruition of promise and power,- ever 
loyal to the immortal past, yet ever freshly adapted to 
the brightening future. 



HISTORICAL SERMON. 



REV. ELIJAH C. DALDWIN, CHKSHIRE, COXN. 

Psalm 112:6 — "The righteous shall be had in everlastinjj re- 
membrance." 

Because the founders of this Town and Church 
loved their souls more than their bodies they came here. 
Inasmuch as a promised heavenly rest was more thought 
of and seemed more valuable than any possible earthly 
advantage they ventured everything for religious liberty. 
Their enlightened consciences demanded a different life 
than it was possible to live or train their families to live 
in England then. They were students of the Holy 
Scriptures. These showed that claims, assumptions and 
demands of civil and ecclesiastical powers at that time 
ruling in their native land were wrong. To accept them 
was in their view sin. To refuse acceptance brought 
fines, imprisonments, persecutions and even death. 

Liberty of opinion or of conduct, even of the most 
peaceable kind, was wholly denied them. The demand 
was, "conform, submit, do as we say, or suffer." Worn 
by such experiences they were moved to brave an ocean 
voyage, the terrors and hardships of an unexplored wil- 
derness for a new home in which they might freely wor- 
ship God as they felt they must. 

E.xtreme views, both concerning the virtues and 
errors of these early settlers, have been and continue to 



88 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

be cherished and advanced. We believe they possessed 
neither unexampled nor unattainable qualities of merit, 
nor were they narrow or unreasonable beyond the aver- 
age of men. They are to be judged by the ideas and 
feelings which governed them, the fruits borne by the 
tree they planted in taith, hope, prayer and personal 
self-denials. There came with them some not of their 
spirit, yet who were willing to follow any new adventure. 
Some were sent by those whose help in pecuniary mat- 
ters the colonists were constrained to accept. These, 
like the "mixed multitude" who went up with the Is- 
raelites out of Egypt, caused much of the reproach to 
which the actual Pilgrims have been subjected. Such 
unworthy ones obtained some recognition among the 
real reformers who sacrificed everything for principle, 
because of unforeseen exigencies in this then unex- 
plored wilderness. 

From the nature of the case we are led to speak: 
First: Of causes^ circumstances, influences producing 
these persons with their views and feeiings. 

What were some of the "siftings" our ancestors 
went through, making them capable of such views and 
deeds ? We can truly say that everything in their 
history centered around religious questions and matters 
of conscience. It is generally admitted that the 
churches instituted by apostles were local. Nothing like 
a national church was known or thought of in early 
Christian centuries. Each local church was complete 
in itself and was held responsible to Christ for its own 
character, and the character of those whom it re- 
tained in its fellowship. In the course of several hun- 
dred years many changes resulted by which the govern- 
ment of churches generally became Episcopal. One se- 
lected as a leader learned to assume authority and by de- 
grees became an officer with powers. The story of Papal 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 89 

Rome's gradual supremacy illustrates the inevitable ten- 
dency of human ideas controlling spiritual matters. 

The great Reformation in the i6th century was an 
attempt to recover the primitive Gospel. It partially suc- 
ceeded. It released truth from much error. The Roman 
Catholic religion, or more properly the church under the 
heirarchy centralized at Rome, was everywhere a politi- 
cal institution as it still endeavors to be. Jleformers like 
Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer and Latimer wanted 
something better than they got, but were hampered by 
the fact that they called in the aid of kings and sover- 
eign princes who had political plans. In England the 
Reformation was on one side a religious movement among 
the people, an inquiry after truth and salvation, a revolt 
of earnest and devout souls against the superstitions, 
false doctrines, and despotic priesthood that hindered 
their access to God. On the other side it was a politico- 
ecclesiastical revolution, an attempt of king and parlia- 
ment to drive out of the kingdom the insolent intrusions 
and vexatious exactions of the court at Rome, a break- 
ing of what had long been felt as a galling yoke on the 
neck of a proud j^eople. As a religious movement the 
Reformation in England began v/ith Wycliffe, "the morn- 
ing star of the Reformation." He tried to evangelize the 
people, giving them the Bible in their own tongue. His 
disciples, under the name of Lollards, carried on the 
work by good books, itinerant preaching and quiet meet- 
ing from place to place. 

In 1534, King Henry \'1II procure 1 the consent of 
Parliament to declare himself .Supreme Head under 
Christ of the Church of England. He then constrained 
the clergy to acknowledge his supremacy. The Romish 
monasteries and other establishments with their valuable 
properties were taken by the king and largely distributed 
among his nol)les and friends. livery lord who held a 



90 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

portion of this might be relied upon to oppose any re- 
turn to the old order. During the reign of the next king, 
Edward VI, the authorized doctrines and forms of Epis- 
copacy were decided upon. Thus the Church of England 
was brought into complete dependence on the crown. -It 
was henceforth a national church. The government 
Protestantism had gone as far as it wished. Rome was 
turned out and Protestant officers held the funds, powers 
and all. They were satisfied to let "well enough alone." 
But other men had consciences. They were reading the 
Scriptures and studying duty in the light of their teach- 
ings. Hence began the Puritan movement under differ- 
ent names, as "Dissenters," "Nonconformists," &c. 
"When such Puritan clergymen officiated without the sur- 
plice, or baptized without the sign of the cross, or pro- 
nounced the nuptial benediction on bride and bridegroom 
who had been married without a ring, or administered 
the Lord's Supper to communicants who received it with- 
out kneeling, they did not consider themselves as leaving 
the national church, but only disregarding in deference 
to the supreme authority of Christ certain regulations 
which being made in derogation of His law were without 
force in His church." When, after being silenced and 
deprived of their livings they met with friends in private 
assemblies for worship, they had no intention of organ- 
izing another church. But under oppression men get 
new light. The more they studied the New Testament 
the less they saw to justify such a national church as the 
English establishment. Earnest thinkers began to with- 
draw from the services of the establishment and meet for 
purer worship among themselves. This the Church of 
England rulers tried to stop. There was a High Com- 
mission "to punish all persons wilfully absent from divine 
service established by law; to visit and reform all errors, 
heresies and schims," and to do many other things. Men, 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORI). 9 1 

and women also, were called to account, fined, iini^risoned 
and even put to death. These things caused religious 
questions to be more and more discussed, written about 
and thought over. The blood of martyrs nourished the 
good seed. In colleges young men discussed. Pam- 
phlets prepared by different ones were circulated secretly. 
Church of England bishops found it needful to write an- 
swers to Puritan books. The leaven steadily worked, 
reaching through England, Scotland and Wales. This 
was the age which knew John Bunyan's preaching, im- 
prisonment and production of Pilgrim's Progress. Fran- 
cis Johnson, a chaplain to English merchants at Middle- 
burg in Zealand, was alarmed at the printing of a new 
book by Barrowe and Greenwood, two leading reformers, 
and took measures to have it suppressed, (letting a copy 
to read that he might refute it he became wonderfully 
roused and converted to their view. He went to London 
to see the authors, then in prison. He after that printed 
and circulated their book. 

Under the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Barrowe and 
Greenwood, for maintaining Christians had a right to 
form voluntary churches, were hung. John Penry, a 
Welchman, born in 1555, became a student at Cambridge. 
Having found Christ precious to his own soul he greatly 
desired to see the gospel preached to his countrymen. 
Writing a book showing his plan for this he was impris- 
oned. The underlying idea of his plan was, "How shall 
they believe in Him of whom they have not heard, and 
how shall they hear without a preacher ? " Having this 
conception of the way to save men he intimated that the 
non-preaching clergy, the only ones then allowed in 
Wales, were not really ministers in the gospel sense. This 
the bishops said was "heresy" and Penry was hung June 
7th, 1593. 

His fate has special interest to us, since the pioneer 



92 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

minister of Milford came either from Wales or near there. 
We may reasonably suppose that Penry's course, writings, 
and death had much to do with the position Peter Prud- 
den took in becoming a Puritan, joining himself with 
Pilgrims seeking new foundations for religion here, and 
sharing destinies with those who settled the colony at 
Wepewage in 1639. 

Robert Brown in 1582 published "A Book wliich 
showeth the Life and Manners of all true Christians." 
Another a little later announced itself as a treatise *'0f 
Reformation without tarrying for any; and of the wick- 
edness of those preachers who will not reform themselves 
and their charge, because they will tarry till the magis- 
trate command and compel them."' This idea of "Ref- 
ormation without tarrying for any" began to be a motto 
with earnest souls, who felt the power of divine truth and 
considered their duty to God, to themselves and others. 
By the beginning of the year 1600 such views were con- 
siderably prevalent in England. At Scrooby, not far 
from London, was quite a congregation. From there 
went to Amsterdam, to Leyden an then to Plymouth in 
America those we know as Pilgrim Fathers. The May- 
flower was first in carrying earnest souls to the wilder- 
ness of the New World. Li a few years many other ves- 
sels followed, bringing colonists to the shores and bays 
of the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. It is 
not now possible to tell the names of many such ships 
since it was often needful to keep them secret as the 
English government sought to hinder taxpayers or "sub- 
sidy men" from coming away. 

Those coming to New England were either former 
parishioners of ministers around whom they gathered or 
such as became acquainted on their way. The ministers 
were by education, character, family connections and 
means very naturally leaders. Few then could have ad- 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, ^^I.^■ORD. 93 

vantages of university instruction unless of wealthy fam- 
ilies. Moreover educated men were not so common but 
they found it easy to marry into prominent families. As 
a former pastor of this Church said was the case with 
himself, they became possessed of considerable worldly 
estate both "by patrimony and matrimony." Peter Prud- 
den must have been of a family somewhat "well-to-do." 
Then his wife who was from Ed<^eton in Yorkshire 
was of a wealthy family as appears from prop- 
erty afterwards coming to the children. His own estate 
was appraised at nearly looo pounds, while there was a 
landed interest in England valued at 1300 pounds. 

It is (luite certain that some of the Milford colonists 
came in the ship Martin and others in the Hector. They 
must have sailed from England before April 30th, 1637, as 
the king on that date issued a proclamation to "command 
his officers and ministers of the ports not to suffer any per- 
sons, being subsidy men, or of their value, to pass to any of 
those plantations without a license from his Majesty's 
commissioners for plantations first obtained ; nor any under 
the degree of subsidy men, without a certificate from two 
justices of the peace where they lived, that they have ta- 
ken the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and a testi- 
mony from the minister of the parish, of their confcjrm- 
ity to the orders and discipline of the Church of Eng- 
land." It usually took two months for a voyage. The 
Hector and her consort, believed to be the Martin, ar- 
rived in Boston June 26th, 1637. These ships were 
chartered by joint stock companies, though all the mem- 
bers of a company did not conic in the ship they partly 
owned. Before the Hector sailed the company which 
chartered her increased so much it was needful to secure 
another vessel to c(jme with her. This increase is be- 
lieved to have been by the coming of the Herefordshire 
and Kent people of Prudden's following. The depar- 



94 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

ture was finally so hasty some were forced to wait, com- 
ing two years later directly to New Haven. 

The New Haven and Milford colonists were ear- 
nestly pressed to remain in Massachusetts, large offers 
of land being made to them. But they adhered to the 
purpose of making independent settlements. They 
wished to form religious and civil government according 
to their own ideas. The Pequot war had made the Eng- 
lish somewhat acquainted with regions west of the Con- 
necticut river. Capts. Stoughton and Underbill bad 
written favorably of the "Quillepiage river." "It hath a 
fair river, fit for harboring ships, and abounds with rich 
and goodly meadows." In September, 1737, Eaton and 
his band first saw Quinnipiac and spent some weeks view- 
ing the shores and region around. The names of all 
these first explorers are not preserved yet it is fair to as- 
sume Thomas Tibbals was one. Seven stayed at Quin- 
nipiac over the winter. Befo re the company moved to 
Connecticut they paid a just portion of the expenses of 
the Pequot war. In the spring of 1638 the leaders and 
most of their followers sailed from Boston and in a fort- 
night arrived at their destination. The story of their 
first Sabbath, April i8th, 1638, under a large spreading 
oak which stood near the corner of George and College 
streets is already familiar. Mr. Davenport preached in 
the morning, from the text of Matt. 3:1. In the after- 
noon Mr. Prudden preached at the same place from Matt. 
^•.^, "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare 
ye the way of the Lord, and make His paths straight." 

As soon as arrangements could be made with the In- 
dians for rights in land they proceeded to divide sections 
to different families. The Prudden men kept themselves 
distinct, their part being designated as the 'Herefordshire 
quarter." As they were not prepared to remove to a 
place of their own at once Mr. Prudden preached for a 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST. MII.FORD. 95 

while at Wethersfield where existed c()nsideral)le diver- 
sity of opinion about ministers. In the meanwhile his 
friends at New Haven and elsewhere began- to negotiate 
for Milford. Their first purchase from the Indians was 
on Feb. 23d, 1639. This comprehended the land be- 
tween the East or Indian river and the Housatonic, the 
sea with the islands south and the two mile Indian path 
to Paugusse (Derby). The deed was taken by Mr. Wil- 
liam Fowlej, Edmund Tapp, Zachariah Whitman, Benja- 
min Fenn and Alexander Bryan in trust for all the 
planters. Six coats, ten blanket.s, one kettle, twelve 
hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen knives and a dozen 
glasses (mirrors) were paid for this section of land. The 
deed was signed on the part of the Indians by Ansanta- 
way, Arracowset, Anshuta, Manamatque, Tatacenacouse. 
"By twig and turf." A twig and a piece of turf being 
brought to the Sagamore he placed the end of the branch 
in the clod and then gave it to the I^nglish as a token that 
he thereby surrendered to them tlie soil with all the trees 
and appurtenances. In later years they made various 
other purchases until the whole territory became theirs 
by equitable rights, the Indians having received its full 
value at the time. A final quit claim was given by the 
Indians October 2d, 1682. The various purchases cov- 
ered what is now Milford and Orange, much of Wood- 
bridge, Derby, Bethany, Ansonia and Seymour. Ansanta- 
way had a wigwam on the tract of land just northwest 
of the new bridge, which was then regarded an island, 
since the river flowed around it on the west. In 1651 it 
was granted to Thomas Sanford to set a barn upon, he 
being required to leave room on the south end for a 
bridge. It was then called Sachem's Island. 

Second: Church organization^ rcmoi'al, compact, settle- 
ment of ministers, C^c. 

During the first year at New Haven there was no 



g6 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

distinct church organization. Much of the time some 
considered whether or no they had not best all return 
to Massachusetts. The Prudden or Herefordshire 
men decided to buy Wepewage and that seemed 
to bring matters to a crisis. Most of the settlers had 
been nonconforming members of the English Church. 
Some had separated therefrom before leaving the mother 
land. Some still were only adventurers induced to leave 
England by friends wishing to be rid of them. In a 
new enterprise where the labors of every person were 
needed even these became of consequence. Ultimately 
some of them were valuable elements. They were now 
associated with those whose influence prompted them to 
better things. 

All saw that the only practical church must be Con- 
gregational. The most troublesome thing to determine 
was the relation a non-church member should hold to 
the civil government. Most were disposed to limit vot- 
ing and office holding to actual church members. Yet 
some very valuable settlers were not such. Nearly all in 
€arly life had been baptized and confirmed in the Eng- 
lish churches. But with their new views they did not 
consider themselves, nor were they considered proper 
church members unless they could give satisfactory evi- 
dences of a spiritual change of heart. 

When a church was formed they expected to be ex- 
amined on this matter of personal piety. Rev. Samuel 
Eaton stood for the principle that all proprietors should 
have a vote. Rev. John Davenport and it is believed 
Rev. Peter Prudden defended with Scriptural arguments 
the position that the power of choosing magistrates, of 
dividing inheritances, of deciding differences should be 
wholly vested in church members. Davenport said, 
"Wherever or whenever a reformation had been effected 
in the church in any part of the world it had rested 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MM, FORD. 97 

where it had been left by the reft)nners. It could not be 
advanced another stej:)." They had come out as re- 
formers. It was their duty to engage in no half meas- 
ures, to make no compromises but to goto the full length 
of their convictions. If they did n')t then and there 
those who came after might not be able to. Davenport's 
views at length prevailed. It is evidence not only of the 
personal influence of Davenport, Frudden and such as 
sympathized WMth them, but of the excellent spirit of 
those who differed that they assented and practically dis- 
franchised themselves. A long time was consumed in 
such discussions. While they were building the first rude 
houses, breaking soil for crops, enduring hardships and 
deprivations incident to their situation they also earnestly 
and prayerfully considered the very foundation principles 
of all government, civil and religious. That year was 
very discouraging because of a late spring. They had 
to plant much seed over again for the first planting rotted 
in the earth. On June ist, between three and four 
o'clock p. m. an earthcjuake occurred, shaking and start- 
ling them exceedingly. 

On June 4th, 1639, the great barn of Robert New- 
man which stood near the present corner of Temple and 
Grove streets in New Haven was the scene of an impor- 
tant meeting of the free planters of Quinnipiac, Wepe- 
wage and Menuncatuck (Ouilford). There is reason to 
believe nine ministers or preachers were present, viz: 
Rev. John Davenport, Rev. Peter Prudden, Rev. John 
Sherman, Rev. Samuel Eaton, Rev. Henry Whitfield, 
Rev. Ezekiel Cheever, Rev. Thomas Hooker, Rev. Sam- 
uel Stone and a Rev. Mr. James from Virginia. They 
fasted and prayed, then proceeded to discussion. At the 
request of Mr. Davenjiort Mr. Robert Newman wrote 
and read what was propounded and voted. The result 
was that each of the six vital (juestions propounded "was 



98 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

assented unto by all, no man dissenting as was expressed 
by holding up of hands." "Afterwards it was read over 
to them that they might see in what words their vote was 
expressed. They again expressed their consent thereto 
by holding up their hands, no man dissenting." The 
only dissent had been on the question of making church 
members only voters and office holders. They thus 
adopted the principle, "that it is of more importance to 
save and be governed by the steeple than by the state." 
Having decided the fundamental questions they 
were prepared to organize churches, which they did in 
the same barn, August 22nd, 1639. The Milford records 
have it that the two churches of New Haven and Mil- 
ford were started on the same day. Mather's Magnalia says 
Milford's organization was on the day following. They 
were each on the same plan, having seven men chosen 
who were called "the seven pillars" by whose examina- 
tion and vote all succeeding members were to be re- 
ceived. Milford's "seven pillars" were Peter Prudden, 
William Fowler, Edmond Tapp, Zachariah Whitman, 
John Astwood, Thomas Buckingham and Thomas Welch. 
In Peter Prudden's own handwriting is recorded the Cov- 
enant, which is as follows: 

THE COVENANT. 

■ Since it hath pleased ye Lord, of his infinite good- 
ness and free grace, to call us (a company of poor miser- 
able people) out of the world unto fellowship with Him- 
self in Jesus Christ, and to bestow Himself upon us by 
an everlasting covenant of his free grace, sealed in ye 
blood of Jesus Christ, to be our God, and to make and 
avouch us to be His people, and hath undertaken to cir- 
cumcise our hearts that we may love ye Lord our God, 
and fear and walke in his ways. Wee therefore doe this 
day avouch ye Lord to be our God even Jehovah ye only 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORI). 99 

true (lod, the Alniiirhty Maker of heaven and earth, the 
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and wee doe 
this da}^ enter into an holy covenant with ye Lord and 
one another, through that grace, and Jesus Christ 
strengthening us (without whom we can do nothing) to 
deny ourselves and all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and 
all corruptions and pollutions wherein in any sort we 
have walked. And doe give up ourselves wholly to ye 
Lord Jesus Christ, to be taught and governed by him in 
all our relations, conditions and considerations in this 
world, avouching him to be our only Prophet and 
Teacher, our only Priest and Propitiation, our only King 
and Lawgiver. And we do further bind ourselves in His 
strength to walk before Him in all professed subjection 
to all His holy ordinances, according to ye Rule of ye 
Gospell, and also to walk together with his Church and 
ye members thereof in all brotherly Loue and Holy 
Watchfulness to ye mutuel building up one another in 
Faythe and Loue. All which ye Lord help us to per- 
form, through His rich grace in (!hrist, according to His 
covenant. Amen." 

August 22nd or 23rd, 1639, was the date of voting 
and signing this covenant, no doubt with prayer by sev- 
eral. Says Mather: "Our glorious Lord Jesus Christ 
himself being born in a stable, and laid in those movable 
and four-squared ves.sels wherein they brought meat unto 
the cattle, it was the more allowable that a church, which 
is the mystical body of that Lord, should thus be born 
in a barn. And in this transaction I behold our Lord, 
with His fan in His hand, purging His floor, and gather- 
ing her wheat into the garner. That holy man, Mr. 
Phillip Henry, being reproached by his persecutors that 
his meeting place had been a barn, pleasantly answered, 
'No new thing, to turn a threshing floor into a temple.' 
So did our Christians at New Haven." 



lOO 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Of the original seven members of Milford Church, 
John Astwood came from Wethersfield, drawn no doubt 
by his attachment to Mr. Prudden. Robert Treat and 
others also who joined the company came from Wethers- 
field. Several such had before come from Watertown, 
Mass., to Wethersfield, having sailed from England in 
Sir Richard Saltonstall's party. Immediately after the 
organization of the church most removed to Wepewage. 
"The body of planters moved from New Haven by land,, 
following the devious Indian footpath, driving their cattle 
and other domestic animals before them, while their 
household and farming utensils, and the materials for 
"the common house" were taken round by water. Serg. 
Thomas Tibbals piloted the company through the woods 
to the place, "he having been there a number of times 
before." The town granted him in 1670, "for and in 
consideration of his helpfulness att first coming to Mil- 
ford to show the first comers the place, two parcels of 
land as a free gift, lying in Westfield, both parcels con- 
tayning ten measured acres." They erected their com- 
mon house at the head of the harbor, on the west side. 
This must have been near the present location of the 
straw shop. 

At their removal from New Haven the people there 
bought their town shares and "privileges of common- 
age." 

November 20th, 1639, the Wepewage company have 
a meeting, probably at their "common house," when they 
adopt a civil code of their own. Regarding themselves 
without the jurisdiction of every other colony, as they in 
fact were, until they united with New Haven, Guilford 
and others in 1644, it was needful to constitute laws of 
their own. There were then forty-four persons "allowed 
to be free planters, having for the present liberty to act 
in the choice of public officers for carrying on public af- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORD. lOI 

fairs ill this plantation." These then had joined the 
church. Ten others came in very soon afterwards. At 
this meeting they voted and agreed: ''That the power of 
electing officers and persons to divide the land into lots, 
to take orders for the timber, and to manage the com- 
mon interests of the plantation, should be in the church 
only, and that persons so chosen should be only among 
themselves." 

These men were dead in earnest to protect them- 
selves if possible from the evils which they had fled from 
in the old country, where civil magistrates of no relig- 
ious character or sympathies had been wont to inflict 
fines and other indignities because certain church offic- 
ials called upon them to do so. They also vote: 

"That they would guide themselves in all their do- 
ings by the written word of God, till such time as a body 
of laws should be established." 

"That five men should be chosen for judges in all 
civil affairs, to try all causes between man and man, and 
as a court to punish any offence and misdemeanor." 

"That the persons invested with the magistracy 
should have power to call a general court whenever they 
might see cause, or the public good require." 

"That they should hold particular court once in six 
weeks wherein should be tried such causes as might be 
brought before them, they to examine witnesses upon 
oath as need should require." 

"That, according to the sum of money which each 
person ]iaid toward the public charges, in such propor- 
tion should he receive or be repaid in lands, and that all 
planters who might come after should ])ay their share 
e(|ually for some |)ublic use." 

"That William Fowler, lulmoiul Tapp, Zachariah 
Whitman, John .\stwootl and Richard Miles be the first 
judges." 



I02 250TH ANNIVERSARY' 

The next year the\^ have a general meeting when 
they vote to name the settlement Milford and that the 
Town seal should be the letters M and F joined. 

That civil compact so lucidly and clearly expressed, 
while so comprehensive, might well be inscribed in goid. 
By the year 1646, as a record of home lots drawn shows, 
the number of proprietors had increased to sixty-six. 
Probably 300 persons were living in Milford at that 
time. 

Rev. Peter Prudden probably served them as preach- 
er and pastor from the time they went to Wepewage, 
yet we believe with some irregularity. He had property 
matters at New Haven and possibly at Wethersfield to 
adjust first. His people also must erect a house for him. 
He was not ordained and installed until April 18th, 1640. 
He had been Episcopally ordained in England. But the 
institutions of the new settlement put all power in the 
local church. It was fit then that the church choosing a 
minister should ordain him. In this, the Congregational 
differs directly with all Episcopal views of ministerial or- 
der. The church chooses its minister out of its own 
membership. The church ordains and installs him over 
themselves, and dismisses him again if it so desire, even 
deposing him from the ministry should they see reason to. 
The calling in of other churches is only for advice and 
assistance, not to gain right or authority. 

Mr. Prudden records this statement on the Milford 
church book: "At Milford, I, Peter Prudden, was called 
to ye office of a Pastour in this Church, and ordained at 
New Haven, by Zachariah Whitman, William Fowler, 
Edmond Tapp, designed by ye Chujch for that work: 
Zach. Whitman being ye moderator for that meeting in 
a day of solemn humiliation, upon ye 3d Saturday in 
April, being I remember ye i8th day of ye month, 1640." 
Thev called Rev. John Sherman to be the "Teacher," 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MILFORD. IO3 

but he declined. Five years later on June 6th, they held 
a day of humiliation and prayer about securing a ruling 
elder. June 26th, 1645, Zachariah ^^'hitnlan was or- 
dained to this office. 

Mr. Prudden's ordination might have been held at 
New Haven because at the time Milford had no proper 
building in which to meet. Possibly also for convenience 
of himself and others who were to take jiart. Rev. John 
Davenport, Rev. Samuel Eaton, Rev. Ezekiel Cheever 
and possibly Rev. Thomas Hooker were present at that 
service. 

March nth, 1645, the Church vote they cannot spare 
Brother Topping who thinks of going to settle in the 
Dutch jurisdiction. March 27th he asks liberty to go to 
Branford. This must have been granted, for he and 
Rev. John Sherman were both connected with Branford 
settlement in 1645. 

''July 3rd, 1645, the Church being met for the nom- 
ination and choice of deacons ten were named and at 
last two only, Brother Clark, Jr., and Brother Fenn, were 
left to be considered of for fitness and of the most 
judged so fit that the Church rested in them if after some 
further time of consideration noe reall things were found 
against them." "About Aug., 1647, Brother Fenn was 
called and Brother Clark was respited because his wife 
w^as then under a distress of lightness in her head." Mr. 
Prudden was not paid a salary but the people planted and 
gathered his crops, secured firewood for him, Cvc. He 
lived where Mr. David L. Ikildwin constructed the house 
now occupied by his daughter Mrs. Xettleton. The first 
burials were near there and his own grave was made on 
his own land back of the house. 

November 24th, 1640, the settlers direct their ofti- 
cers "to set out a meeting house thirty feet square, after 
such manner as they should judge most convenient for 



I04 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

the public good." This house is believed to have been 
much like one built at New Haven of which we learn, 
"It was two stories high, had a sharp roof, on the top a 
turret where sentry could stand and look out for Indians 
and where a drum was beat to call people together Sab- 
baths, town meeting days, S:c." The house was not 
wholly finished for several years. In 1697 a gallery was 
built across the west end. In 1707 another gallery was 
put on the north end. In 1709 still another gallery was 
erected on the south side. In 17 10 they made a door 
out of the west end for a passage from each gallery into 
the street These things show constant growth of town 
and congregation. Seats in the house were set apart for 
armed men who were expected to come to the Sabbath 
worship with muskets fully prepared to repel any sudden 
attack from Indians. These were at times troublesome 
and dangerous. In their outbreaks they would rush up 
to the palisades, deride the settlers as cowards for keep- 
uig themselves in a pen, challenge them to come out and 
fight like brave men, boasting that they kept the English 
"shut up all one as pigs." In 1646 there was such 
alarm the entire "train band" went to meeting on Sab- 
baths and Lecture days, sentinels were placed on the 
palisades a few rods apart, the people even went to their 
fields in armed companies. 

As late as 1700 there was so much fear of Indians 
that houses were fortified at different ends of the town, 
yet there is no account of any Milford man being killed 
by Indians. 

A new meeting house was voted in r7 27. This was 
the famous "three-decker" which some still remember. 
It was eighty feet long, sixty-five feet wide and three 
stories high, having two galleries, an upper one for slaves 
and other blacks which had become numerous then. 
There were three entrances to this house, one south, 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MII.FORD. 1 05 

another east and another west. The puli)it was on the 
north side. This house had a steeple ninety-five feet 
high. In the first house Major P. Eells, Mr. Richard 
Bryan and Mr. George Clark were allowed to build them- 
selves seats, one over the gallery stairs and the others 
near the guard seats In the new house the use of the 
northeast pew in the lower gallery was granted to Mr. 
George Clark forever. Next to his one was given to Mr. 
Zachariah Whitman also. The new house had long 
benches till 1775 when pews were made. In 1803 the 
interior was arched, the upper gallery being thus shut up. 
Some remember the "peace" illumination of this great 
house after the war of 181 2 when every pane of glass in 
it had a candle burning before it. The society very early 
had a bell, but in 1740 procured a new one weighing six 
hundred pounds. The same year a tower clock was put 
up in the steeple. In 1709 the town voted that "who- 
ever needlessly sat out of his seat should forfeit five shil- 
lings." 

Sermons and prayers constituted the Sabbath ser- 
vices. Sermons were one or two hours long, prayers 
nearly an hour in length. There was no reading of 
Scripture lessons for the first one hundred years. The 
singing was Psalms "lined," the "Bay Psalm Book" the 
earliest used. There were no religious services at wed- 
dings or funerals for fifteen years, then the practice went 
to the other extreme and became quite ostentatious. 
Baptisms were soon as possible after birth and later were 
largely private. 

Rev. Peter Prudden died July, 1656. The Church 
did not secure a pastor till four years later, when in .Vug- 
ust, 1660, Rev. Roger Newton was settled. 

Others having related the story of these men they 
are passed over here with but a word or two. Mather 
remarks: "He continued an able and faithful servant of 



Io6 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

the churches, until about the fifty-sixth year of his own 
age, and the fifty-sixth ot the present age; when his 
death was felt by the colony as the fall of a pillar, which 
made the whole fabric shake. Like that of Piccart, now 
let our Prudden lie under this EPPFAPH: 

"Dogmate non tantum fuit Auditoribus Idem 
Exemplo in Vita; jam quoque morte proeit.'" 

Rev. Roger Newton resided about where Dr. Beards- 
ley's house stands. He taught many young men who 
afterwards became eminent as ministers, like Abraham 
Pierson, Thomas Buckingham, Samuel Treat. He came 
from Farmington to Milford. He served Milford twenty 
years, dying here greatly lamented June 7th, 1683. 

Third: Changes and trying questions -^uhich arose 
therewith in the pastorates of Rev. Saini/el Andretv, Rev. 
Satniiel Whittlesey and others: 

So busy were the settlers in efforts to secure com- 
fortable subsistence, build homes and defend themselves 
from Indians they had not anticipated nor prepared for 
the serious questions now coming on. In 1643 Massa- 
chusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven colo- 
nies united in a confederacy for mutual safety — "The 
United Colonies of New England." Each was to send 
two commissioners to meet annually in September, first 
at Boston, then at Hartford, New Haven and Plymouth. 
This made the colonies formidable to the Dutch and In- 
dians and helped preserve their settlements during civil 
wars in England. Milford had some difficulty in gain- 
ing admittance to the New Haven colony portion of the 
confederation because six of her voting members were 
not church members. Before being admitted she had to 
agree that those persons should not vote. England 
claimed the territory along the Atlantic coast because of 
the discoveries of the Cabots in 1497-1498. At the or- 



KIRSr CHURCH OK CHRIST, MH.I'ORI). 107 

L^aiiization of London and Plynioutli ccnipanies in 1606 
what is now Connecticut was included in t,n-ants made by 
England's king to these companies. These sold patents 
to various colonists for settlement. The comnion story 
in our histories is that the Councd of Plymouth in 1630 
granted the territory to Earl Warwick, that he in 1631 
transferred it to Viscount Say and Sele, Lord Brooke and 
others who were disposed to establish Puritan colonies 
here. Some doubt this story because they do not find 
documentary evidences of it. It is thought by them that 
the various colonists had no legal title to the lands occu- 
pied until they obtained a charter in 1662 from Charles 
IL In 166 1 (lov. Winthrop of Connecticut colony was 
sent as agent to England for a patent. He was success- 
ful, getting a grant with ample privileges signed April 
20th, 1662. He took five hundred pounds in money to 
use as should be necessary and without doubt did use it 
where "it would do the most good." This was the char- 
ter Connecticut has been so careful to preserve, which 
was hidden in the Old Oak at Hartford when Robert 
Treat of Milford was presiding at the meeting there, a 
meeting called by .\ndross' order that he might take it 
away. The colony of New Haven by that charter was 
included in Connecticut. When this fact was first known 
the people of New Haven, Milford, P)ranford, Cuilford 
and Stamford were greatly disturbed. It was subversive 
of all their ideas of government. Rev. .Vbraham Pier- 
son of Branford, finding there was no help for it but to 
submit, prepared to leave. He led many families from 
Branford, some from Milford and other towns to help 
him settle Newark on the Passaic river in New Jersey. 
The town plots on the Passaic river were first called 
"Milford Plots." New Haven colony people would no 
doubt have made more resistance but for fear of being 
ab.sorbed by New York. About the time Charles II gav 



Io8 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

this new patent to Winthrop he gave another to his own 
brother, Duke of York and Albany, of several extensive 
tracts of land in North America in which the lands on 
the west side of Connecticut river were included. When 
this became known in New Haven towns and also that 
the Duke of York was on his way with a fleet to take 
possession of his grant the wiser men saw the only hope 
of avoiding being absorbed by New York was to unite 
their destinies with Connecticut and make common cause 
with her against the Duke of York's claims Robert 
Treat of Milford, who had risen to eminence both as a 
brave soldier in Indian wars and as a wise leader in civil 
matters, used all his efforts with others to bring about 
union. He saw very clearly the dreaded alternative. 
He was able to induce his fellow citizens to agree to it, 
and we find Milford among the first of New Haven towns 
yielding to the call of C-onnecticut under the new char- 
ter. Yet many were displeased. They began to look 
elsewhere for settlements, colonizing various places. 
Some Milford families received large estates from the 
mother country and invested in lands at Woodbury; Se- 
tauket, L. I ; New Milford; Huntington, L. I.; Farming- 
ton, Southington, &:c. John Burwell, Thomas Welch, 
Alexander Bryan, Richard Baldwin, Jesse Lambert were 
among those obtaining large estates from home. Rev. 
Samuel Andrew was ordained at Milford Nov. i8th, 1685. 
The Church had been bereft of a pastor for several 
years and was considerably divided. They had called 
Rev. Samuel Mather who was at Bran ford and had mar- 
ried a daughter of Gov. Robert Treat. But he settled at 
Windsor. He gave as reasons for declining to accept 
Milford's call: -'First, the smallnesss of their mainten- 
ance; second, they being of that perswasion wee call 
antisynodalianer." That is, not favorable to the govern- 
ments of synods. They must however have become more 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MU.FORD. I09 

favorable to them under the leadership of Mr. Andrew 
since he became one of the council who decidetl upon 
"The Saybrook Platform." At the ordination of Mr. 
Andrew Daniel Buckingham was ruling elder. Though 
the Church was divided before, they were drawn together 
so that Mr. Andrew spent his days usefully among them, 
dying January 24th, 1738, aged 82 years. He was the 
son of Samuel and Elizabeth Andrew. He was born at 
Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 29th, 1656. He was graduated 
at Harvard college in 1675. He remained there as resi. 
dent fellow or tutor and was entrusted with a large share 
of the government for five or six years. He was in every 
respect a superior man. His wife was Abigail, youngest 
daughter of Gov. Robert Treat. They had seven chil- 
dren, five sons and two daughters, who grew to maturi- 
ty. His pastorate was a period of brilliant history for 
Milford. 

Mr. Andrew was an acknowledged leader in the col- 
ony. He was acting President of Yale college, of which 
he had been prominent in organizing. After Mr. 
Pierson died, Mr. Andrew acted in his stead until his 
own son-in-law, Rev. Timothy C'utler of Stratford was 
chosen to that position. Rev. Abraham Pierson had 
studied at Milford under Rev. Roger Newton and mar- 
ried Mr. George Clark's daughter. Rev. Samuel Mather 
had studied here also and married (iov. Treat's daugh- 
ter. Rev. Samuel Hall also married into Gov. Law's 
family. Mr. Andrew had the graduating classes of Yale 
studying with him for several years in succession. The 
town sustained several thriving commercial enterprises at 
the time. Her counsellors were the great men of the 
colony. It was not a period of deep spiritual life yet 
much was being done for education, refinement and 
progress. The clergy exercised great power, were much 
looked up to, had things very much as they wished in 



no 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

laws and government, yet did not usually employ their 
power arbitrarily or unwisely. The adoption of the Say- 
brook Platform was but the natural growth and expres- 
sion of ideas ruling at the time. Fully half of those en- 
gaged in securing that instrument of ecclesiastical power 
were of Milford or connected by marriage with Milford 
families. Rev. Mr. Buckingham at whose house in Say- 
brook it was voted went from Milford. The abuses of 
this instrument occurred somewhat later when different 
men were in power. 

Rev. Samuel Andrew lived where Henry J. Bristol 
now lives. He was a hard student, of very retiring hab- 
its, seldom visiting his people or leaving his study even 
to attend a funeral. He had very much the view of 
pastoral life which some modern ministers do who seek to 
have assistants in their pastoral work. It worked then 
as it does now, divorced the minister very much from all 
sympathies with the common people and by so much lim- 
ited his usefulness. Mr. Andrew's daughter Abigail was 
wife of Gov. Law and bore him five children. His eld- 
est son Samuel graduated at Yale college in lyii.and 
some of his descendants are to be found in every gener- 
ation of graduates since. Mr. Andrew's monument bears 
this inscription: 

"Here lies ye body of ye Rev. and learned Mr. Sam- 
uel Andrew, Pastor of ye Church of Christ in this place 
for above 50 years. Formerly fellow of Harvard College 
and more lately Rector of Yale College — a singular or- 
nament and blessing in every capacity and relation — of 
unwearied labors, modest, courteous, and beneficent — 
never fond of this world, earnestly pursuing and recom- 
mending a better, greatly esteemed in life, and lamented 
at death, which was January 24, 1737-8, lacking five days 
to complete 82 years of life." 

In the later years of Mr. Andrew's ministry the 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MH.FORD. Ill 

Church adopted the "Halfway Covenant" idea. Tliis 
allowed parents who liad themselves been baptized to 
have their children baptized by owning the covenant, even 
if not yet members of the Church. These children af- 
terwards, if of reputable characters, could come into full 
fellowship by acknowledging the Church covenant with- 
out being examined concerning a spiritual change of 
heart. It was of course a great letting down of respon- 
sibility and duty to God. It brought many into the 
Church who were full of carnal ideas and plans. If the 
finances were flourishing and the people outwardly moral 
not much was said of other requirements. This state of 
things made it possible to secure the Saybrook Platform 
and civil legislation to accord therewith. The churches 
helped the politicians and therefore the politicians helped 
the church leaders to secure power over all who differed. 
There had grown thus a system of Presbyterian ism of 
the severest kind. Every person was recjuired by law to 
pay his tax toward supporting the minister who had been 
legally settled over that parish or town. No other 
preacher or minister had any legal right to hold any ser- 
vice within the bounds of that parish. It was the Eng- 
lish condition from which the fathers had lied enacted 
over again in New England, especially in Connecticut. If 
a neighboring pastor came upon another's territory he 
could not only be brought to trial for it, but i^revenled 
from securing his own salary from his own parish. If a 
person from another colony should preach in a Connecti- 
cut parish without the pastor's consent he was to be ar- 
rested, passed over to the constable of the next town and 
so on from town to town until he was put out of the 
bounds of Connecticut as a vagrant. 

Ur. Prince of Boston tells us that the first sixty 
years in New England churches was one of almost con- 
tinual revival. Preaching was attended with so much 



112 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

power in some places, "that it was a common inquiry, by 
such members of a family as were detained at home on a 
Sabbath, whether any had been visibly awakened in the 
house of God that day ? " "Few Sabbaths did pass with- 
out some being evidently converted, and some convinc- 
ing proof of the power of God accompanying His word." 
This partly explains why in Milford and elsewhere the 
early preachers had such success in bringing settlers who 
came fiom England unconverted into their churches here. 
It also gives rise to a theory sometimes advanced that 
the early settlers, especially the ministers, were generally 
"Millenarians." It is even said the New Haven people 
flattered themselves they were founding Christ's millen- 
ial kingdom which was to extend from sea to sea, that 
their city would be the seat of empire, that Christ would 
come in person and live with them a thousand years. 
But Lambert remarks, "It does not appear from the early 
records that they ever made Him a grant of a building 
lot on which to erect his palace." Yet they were earnest 
men, who felt in preaching, that they stood between the 
living and the dead. Their churches were full of spir- 
itual life and fervor. On the other hand Dr. Increase 
Mather testifies of the period just before Edwards and 
Whitefield, which was also in the later years of Mr. An- 
drew's ministry, "Conversions have become rare in this 
age of the world. The great bulk of the present genera- 
tion are apparently poor, perishing, and if the Lord pre- 
vent not undone; many are profane, drunkards, lasciv- 
ious scoffers at the power of godliness and disobedient; 
others are civil and outwardly conformed to good order, 
because so educated, but without knowing aught of a real 
change of heart." 

•^ It was evidently time for a new state of things. It 
came. Rev. Jonathan Edwards at Northampton, Mass., 
seemed called to inaugurate the great work which ex- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORD. IIJ 

tended over New Kngiand aiul the Middle States and 
even far South. Whitefield followed, arousing the peo- 
ple to repentance by his trumpet-like addresses. Others 
took up the cry and vast numbers woke to spiritual life. 
The general results were most salutary, saving our Con- 
gregational churches from dead formalities and hierarch- 
ical pretentions evermore. 

Rev. Samuel Whittelsey was called to the pastorate 
of this Church as these changes were beginning to work. 
He was born at Wallingford July lolh, 17 13, the son of 
Rev. Samuel Whittelsey of that place. He graduated at 
Yale college in 1729 when 16 years old, the earliest son 
of a Yale graduate to receive a degree. He studied 
theology with his fattier while tutor of college from 1732- 
1738. His father was one of the wealthiest and most in- 
fluential of ministers in Connecticut. He was what was 
called an "Old Light." When he died he left a large 
property mostly in "negro or mulatto servants" valued at 
$125,000. His wife was Sarah, daughter (^f Rev. Na- 
thaniel Chauncey of Hatfield, Mass. While tutor at 
Yale the son preached in different places very acceptably. 
He was invited to settle at Woodstock first. The call 
was made by that church October 28th, 1736, and by tiie 
town November 18th. Suspicions soon arose about his 
views of church government. He was asked if he would 
subscribe to the Cambridge Platform and declined. He 
preferred the Saybrook Platform. This was taken as 
declining the Woodstock call. He preached some at 
Milford during the latter part of Mr. Andrew's pastor- 
ate. He was invited to become colleague of Mr. An- 
drew. He accepted the call. Yet when it was proposed 
to ordain him a considcralile minority of the Church ob- 
jected. They thought he lacked spirituality. Cnder the 
revival movements then inaugurated the dcinanil was for 
more spiritual and fervent preaching. Mr. Whittelsey 



114 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

was scholarly but his life was somewhat out of the range 
of the revival spirit, especially as his father was noted as 
an opponent of every such thing. 

His father led the assault upon Rev. Philemon Rob- 
bins of Branford for preaching revival sermons to a Bapr 
tist church in Wallingford. Mr. Whittelsey's call was 
given by this Church, Jan. ist, 1737, as the record in Mr. 
Andrew's handwriting says, "by an undoubted majority." 
In Dec, 1737, a council met to ordain him. There were 
thirteen ministers and twelve laymen present. When they 
saw the strong and respectable opposition and how ear- 
nestly they urged their objections a majority of the mem- 
bers were against going on. This aroused great feeling. 
Rev. Benjamin Trumbull of North Haven testifies that 
he was told by one of the elders, a member of the coun- 
cil, the debate was with so much passion fists were 
doubled on the occasion. The candidate's father urged 
the ordination with great warmth. Joseph Noyes of New 
Haven, Samuel Hall of Cheshire, Isaac Stiles of North 
Haven and some other ministers helped Mr. Whittelsey. 
Gov. Jonathan Law was very earnest to have Mr. Whit- 
telsey for his pastor. The older men were for the candi- 
date and showed impatience toward the younger brethren 
for objecting. The weight of social and ministerial in- 
fluence was for the pastor elect but the numbers were 
against settling a man over a church under such circum- 
stances. At length a compromise was secured. If those 
opposed would allow the ordination to go on and consent 
to hear Mr. Whittelsey six months, and they were not then 
satisfied, the Church and Town should call and settle 
another man to suit them, as colleague with Mr. Whittel- 
sey to preach half the time. This being agreed to the 
ordination was effected. It took three days and nights 
to get to this result. The sermon and charge of the oc- 
casion were published, the first by Mr. Whittelsey's father, 



FIRST CHURCH OI' CHRIST, MIl.IORI). II5 

the Other by his uncle, Rev. Nathaniel Chauncey of Dur- 
ham. He also offered one of the prayers. The other 
parts were by Rev. Jared Elliott of Killingworth, now 
Clinton, Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington, Rev. 
Jacob Hemingway of East Haven. 'i"he minority of the 
Church (juieted down somewhat, heard Mr. Whittelsey 
nearly two years, seeking in the meanwhile occasionally 
to have him invite some one they named to preach a Sab- 
bath or two. But he did not accede to the request. 
Then they asked the C'hurch and Town for the fulfilment 
of the agreement. Hut neither Church or Town moved 
for their relief. They replied, "You have postponed 
your reijuest too long." 

About this time Episcopal families began to be quite 
uneasy, making objection to paying the Church taxes. 
In October 26th, 1740, Whitefield preached in the great 
Church. On his way to New Haven a few days be- 
fore, a minister who met him said, "Ii". is not absolutely 
necessary for a Gospel minister, that he should be con- 
verted." This stirred him to a line of address which 
gave offence, as he dwelt upon "the dreadful conse- 
quences of an unconverted ministry." Perhaps some of 
these ministers felt the rebuke applied to themselves, for 
it was some time afterwards said of Mr. Whittelsey"sown 
brother Chauncey, then pastor of Center church. New 
Haven: "He has no more spirituality than the bench we 
sit on." The mintjrity g(jt no relief from Church or 
Town so were finally ready to say, "To your tents, O 
Israel !" They applied to the Association but in vain. 
It seemed to be the purpose of all the older ministers to 
keep things as they were, for they failed to read the 
"signs of the times." To the number of forty-seven the 
minority of the First Church declared their "sober dis- 
sent" according to English law. They were soon joined 
by twelve others and gained sympathy every day. But 



Il6 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

it was not peace with them. England was a great way 
off. The real power was in the hands of local officers. 
Their preachers were arrested and they themselves con- 
tinually taxed for the payment of a minister they would 
not hear preach. More of their preachers would have 
been arrested and fined had they not learned to get them 
out of the place before Monday morning. Mr. Benajah 
Case of Simsbury was prosecuted for preaching to them 
on Jan. 17th, 1742, and imprisoned in the county jail, by 
sentence of Gov. Law. Mr. Pomeroy was served in the 
same way. Rev. Samuel Finlay, afterwards president of 
Princeton college, in the same year preached to them 
August 25th, also on the following Sabbath. He was ar- 
rested, tried, condemned and ordered to be transported 
as a vagrant out of the colony from town to town. The 
virulence of such persecutions only hastened the end. 
For sympathy grew toward the young church and its per- 
secuted ministers. Ephraim Strong, a graduate of Yale 
college of 1737, was a leader in the new church. He 
married the daughter of John and Mary (Clark) Prud- 
den. Her brother, Rev. Job Prudden, a graduate of Yale 
college in 1743 and great-grandson of Peter Prudden, 
was finally secured as pastor and was ordained thus May, 
1747. To avoid trouble he was ordained in New Jersey, 
two delegates from the church attending. Mr. Prudden 
proved prudent, laborious and faithful, winning good 
opinions for himself and prosperity for his church. The 
meeting house they built stood between'Mr. William 
Strong's and Mr. David Miles' and was used by them 
until the present house was erected about fifty years ago. 
On Job Prudden's tombstone we read: "A bountiful bene- 
factor to mankind, well beloved in his life, and much 
lamented in his death." He left quite a property to the 
church. 

Rev. Samuel Whittelsey lived at the Josiah Bucking- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. I I 7 

ham place just north of the meeting house. He died 
October 22nd. 1768, having been pastor thirty-one years. 
Judging from the number of persons known and esti- 
mated to have been received into church during his min- 
istry he was a most useful pastor in spite of the difficul- 
ties under which he commenced and carried on his work 
for years. At one communion twenty-two, an unusual 
number for the times, joined the church. It is but just 
to say that the movements against the separatists were 
not commenced nor kept up by him. His wife was Su- 
sannah, daughter of Col. Roger Newton. She was the 
great-granddaughter of Rev. Roger Newton. Her 
father was the son of Samuel and Susannah (Bryan) 
Newton. He was the son of Rev. Roger Newton. Mr. 
Whittelsey's widow afterwards married Hon. Jabez Ham- 
lin of Middletown. She was a woman of superior char- 
acter and abilities. 

Rev. Job Prudden died of small po.\, caught w^hile 
visiting a sick person. The division which seemed so 
needless to many and for years caused deep feelings has 
been graciously overruled by God for good. Two strong, 
prosperous Congregational churches now do a good work 
side by side, giving this order much more influence in 
the whole town than a single church could do, though 
much larger. It was during this period that the Episco- 
pal church was begun, in 1764. They were able to build 
a house of worship in 1771. It was consecrated under 
the name of St. George's church, March, 1775. The 
land on which it was built, purchased of the town, was 
bounded north by a brook, east by Mill river, south by a 
swamp, and west by the road. On the same place forty 
years ago the present attractive structure was erected and 
later the pleasant parsonage near by. 

The society gave a call to Rev. Samuel Bird who had 
preached for them some, but he at length declined it. 



Il8 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

/ Rev. Samuel Wales, jfrom Raynham, Mass., did accept 
the invitation given him. He was born in March, 1748, 
and graduated from Yale college in 1767. He had been 
classmate with John 'rrumbuU. author of McFingal; 
John Tread well, Governor of Connecticut, and Y)r. N. 
Emmons, the eminent pastor of Franklin, Mass. Mr. 
Wales taught for a time in Dr. Wheelock's Indian school 
at Lebanon. During 1769, he was tutor at Yale college. 
While thus serving, he preached at Milford and was set- 
tled Dec. 19th, 1769. Being an ardent friend of libert}- 
he served as chaplain in the army during 1776. A few 
years later, the Second society had Rev. Josiah Sherman 
for its pastor. There arose a misunderstanding between 
these men requiring the intervention of the New Haven 
Co. Association. Mr. Sherman had expressed the opin- 
ion that the two churches would do better to unite. Mr. 
Wales held they were better apart, yet admitted he was 
not entirely in harmony with some of his leading mem- 
bers. Mr. Sherman was not .careful in keeping to him- 
self what Mr. Wales spoke of confidentially. The low 
state of pecuniary matters on account of war expenses 
made it difficult to sustain satisfactorily both societies. 
The town "got by the ears" with these reported sayings 
of the ministers. The Association, at Mr. Wales' request, 
met in Milford Sept., 1780, continuing its sessions the 
27th, 28th and 29th. 

Both men made concessions and the affair was ar- 
ranged. Mr. Sherman was dismissed June 21st, 1781. 
He was of the family of Rev. John Sherman and had a 
son who became "Judge" Sherman of Fairfield. Mr. 
Wales in 1782 was chosen a Professor of Divinity at Yale 
college and went there to live. He was dismissed from 
Milford in May, 1782. His wife was a Miles of Milford 
and his home the house known as the "Parson Train" 
place. He built in New Haven the first house erected 



P'IRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MII.KORIJ. II9 

on Temple street, now the "Judge" Billings place. He 
preacTTed^anTTtecTion Serinon~nefore~tHe' Legislature in 
1785. He died at New Haven Feb. iSth, 1794. Dr. 
Dana preached his funeral sermon and President Stiles 
commemorated him in a Latin address. Dr. Wales was 
a masterly preacher. His voice was deep and sonorous, 
easily filling the largest house. In applying his discourse 
he would noi unfrequently exclaim, "Conscience, thou 
Vicegerent of the Almighty, do thine office." He was 
honored with the degree of D. 1). by Harvard and Prince- 
ton colleges. It is believed no irreverent word ever es- 
caped his lips though he was at times humorous. 

Rev. William Lockwood, of Wethersfield, son of 
James Lockwood, was settled March 17th, 1784. He 
was born Jan. 21st, 1753, and graduated at Vale college 
in 1774. He was tutor at college two years. He lived 
in the house at Milford which had been built for Mr. 
Wales. His labors and cares proved too much for his 
strength and he asked to be dismissed, leaving on April 
28th, 1796. 

He was installed at Glastenbury in 1797 and preached 
there till 1804, when bodily infirmities compelled his 
retirement. He continued to reside there much respect- 
ed, dying June 23rd, 1828. It was the practice when he 
was pastor for all the people to be in the meeting house 
before his arrival, to rise as he entered and to remain 
standing until he took his seat in the pulpit. The people 
also bowed as he went up to the deik. Rev. David 'Ful- 
ler was pastor of the Second Society during the same 
period. Mr. Lockwood published a sermijn preached at 
the funeral of .Nhs. Jcrusha Wnodbridge in 1799. 

There is danger, unless we are careful, of doing in- 
justice to the memory of pastors and churches in this 
period. It must be remembered that it was a time of 
great poverty in the towns of Conn. The Kevolulionary 



I20 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

War, following so soon the French and Indian War, had 
impoverished the people. Many also had died or been 
killed who would otherwise have remained a working 
force to retrieve more rapidly the empty resources. Busi- 
ness had really to be reorganized and recommenced un- 
der the new conditions necessitated by the changes war 
had brought. The newly opened Western and Southern 
lands enticed many young men and even whole families 
from the older places, thus much reducing the popula- 
tion without reducing the debts or removing the burdens 
to be carried. Under these circumstances all taxes were 
hard to meet. Supporting churches by taxation was more 
and more felt a burden, yet churches of the "Standing 
Order," that is Congregational churches, did not at once 
see the time had come for a change of policy to the vol- 
untary method of church support. The law allowed 
persons to sign off to other societies, Episcopal, Baptist, 
&c. This many did, not because they were ready to be 
Episcopalians or Baptists, but to get rid of taxation. 
These churches, the ungodly, the politicians of the "Tol- 
eration" Party and others, for various reasons, made all 
they could of this state of things. This rendered 
church support and spiritual progress very difficult for 
these years. 

Rev. Joseph Fish was called after Mr. Lockwood 
left, but he did not decide to settle at Milford. 

Rev. Bezaleel Pinneo came in 1796 to be a life long 
pastor. Born at Lebanon (at the "Crank") July 28th, 
1769, he was graduated at Dartmouth college in 1791. 
He studied theology with Dr. Smalley of New Britain. 
Rev. Thomas Brockway, his pastor at Columbia, preached 
his ordination sermon and it was published. He married 
Miss Mary Stone. They had seven children, she dying 
when her youngest child was two years old. He married, 
later, Miss Leah Hill. Next to that of Mr. Andrew, his 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORI). 121 

was the most memorable of all the pastorates of Milford 
Church. He was regarded one of the ablest mhiisters 
of the period, being talked of for President of Yale col- 
lege after the death of President Dwight. Had he been 
a graduate, he might have been chosen thus. 

In the early part of 1800 and so on for several years 
he preached once in two weeks at Orange until they se- 
cured a minister for themselves. They dedicated a meet- 
ing house there April 17th, 1811, when he preached a 
sermon which was published. During his pastorate pow- 
erful revivals occurred. One in 1816 is especially remem- 
bered. He was then assisted by several theological 
students who were studying with him. Two of them 
were Milford men, Mr. Benjamin Fenn and Mr. Roger 
Andrew. In 1828 was another revival when Rev. Theron 
Baldwin aided him. Three days meetings were held, 
with a "conference of churches." One earnest delegate 
is remembered as causing some amusement by defective 
grammar which w^as however excused on account of his 
sincerity. He said, "My friends, you don't understand 
the vally of religion. I can't tell you the vallyof it.'' 
More were added to the church that year than ever be- 
fore. There was another revival season in 1832, ("Chol- 
era Summer"). That began in the Second Church where 
Rev. Asa M. Train was pastor. Protracted meetings 
were held in the month of June. A minister named Foot 
and another named Avery assisted the pastors. There 
were two "Foots" going about as evangelists then. It 
was the period of "Faylorism" and "Tylerism" contro- 
versy. Ministers divided on the New and Old School 
views. The Old Schools emphasized Divine Sovereignty 
wiiile the New Schools dwelt upon human ability and re- 
sponsibility. As the "Foots" were on opposite sides of 
the question they went by the name of "Left Foot" and 
"Right Foot." It was "Left Foot" who labored in Mil- 



122 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

ford. The results were precious, nearly as many coming 
into the Church as in 1828. Mr. Pinneo from age and 
infirmity asked a colleague in 1840. Rev. David B. Coe 
came. He was settled, continuing till 1S44. In the sec- 
ond and third years of his pastorate very precious revi- 
vals occurred. A large number of heads of families were 
brought in. One hundred and forty-five persons united 
with the Church, the largest at one time in all the 
Church's history. As " Father Pinneo" saw so many he 
remarked with deep feeling, " I am rebuked for my want 
of faith, since I regarded these beyond the reach of the 
gospel." "Father Pinneo's" last service was at the 
Communion when he rose and said, " Little Children 
love one another!" He died Sept., 1849. Mr. Coe was 
called to the Allen Street Presbyterian church in New 
York city. A few years later he was chosen Secretary 
of the A. H. M. S. in which service he still continues. It 
is thought that one reason for his willingness to leave a 
people who were so much attached to him was their neg- 
lect to provide him a suitable house. Rev. Jonathan 
Brace was installed colleague of "Father Pinneo" in 
1845. He was a native of Hartford, born in 1810. He 
was ordained at Litchfield in 1838. He came to Milford 
after several years experience as pastor and it was re- 
marked by some, " Well, we are glad they have got a 
man of experience to come into this large Church." He 
remained till 1863 when he removed to Hartford, preach- 
ing more or less in different places till his death in 1877, 
Oct. I St. His age was 67. He was then, and had been 
for many years, editor of The Religious Herald. He 
proved a wise and successful minister. Through all his 
pastorate he held the congregation remarkably. He was 
a most reliable preacher, always presenting what was in- 
teresting and instructive. While not familiar, nor very 
accessible, he was friendly and true. His Tuesday even- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILKORD. I 23 

ing Bible Class was a valuable thing. Considerable num- 
bers attended it and were always interested and profited. 
His Fast day and Thanksgiving day sermons attracted 
much attention. At one period an Evangelist named 
Underwood had conducted a revival with Dr. Brace, the 
results of which were precious. 

Improvements began to be made in the meeting house, 
especially the building of a Lecture room. Dr. Brace 
interested himself in the Nation's welfare. To encour- 
age enlistments during the war he offered and paid ten 
dollars to each recruit from Milford. His conduct gave 
quite an impulse to patriotic duty among the young men. 

The Deacons who were especially relied upon during 
Mr. Brace's ministry were Samuel Marshall, John Benja- 
min, Samuel Glenney and Hammond Beach, all of whom 
were regularly at Prayer meetings and other services 
with a united influence. 

Dr Brace bought the " Duddington " place, fitted it 
up and made it his home during all his pastorate at Mil- 
ford. Mrs. Benedict Arnold Law deserves mention as 
affording her pastor special inspiration. As he saw her 
going by, unfailingly, every Sabbath morning, he would 
remark, " 'I'he blue cotton umbrella is going by and I 
must try to have a good sermon." She attended the 
afternoon Mother's meeting one day when for some rea- 
son no one else went. When asked who was there and if 
they had a good meeting, she replied, "The Lord was 
there, ('hrist was there. The Holy Spirit was there. 
And I was there. We had a good meeting !" She was 
Henrietta Gibbs, sister to Miss Esther Gibbs, so long a 
teacher on the " Broad Street." 

Up to the period of Dr. Brace's pastorate, music 
had been furnished by voluntary |)erf()rmers, a cho- 
rus choir, witii players upon the violin, bass viol, &c. 
Hubbard Bottsford, William (ilenney and others are well 



124 25OTH ANNIVERSARY 

remembered performers upon such instruments. Sing- 
ing schools during portions of the year were held with 
great interest and benefit. The music was ordinarily of 
excellent character. It did not attain to the proportions, 
as to number of singers, in Mr. Pinneo's time. Then 
the choir singers occupied not only the north gallery but 
the front seats of both side galleries up to the very 
doors. 

With the latter part of Dr. Brace's time and the be- 
ginning of Pastor Hubbell's, came the demand for a 
modern organ and a more carefully selected and partly 
paid company of singers. While we think the singing is 
more skilful and perhaps more satisfactory to the highly 
cultivated taste of the present, yet we own to occasion- 
ally longing for more of the old time freedom, heartiness, 
and blending of numerous voices, that made a participa- 
tion in the service of song an easier matter by the wor- 
shipers not chosen to be in the actual choir. 

The latter pastors. Rev. James A. Hubbell, Rev. Al- 
bert J. Lyman, Rev. J. A. Biddle, Rev. S. M. Keeler, 
Rev. Newell M. Calhoun and Rev. Frank L. Ferguson, 
are able to speak for themselves, as they have done. 

The ancient Church has gone steadily on, progress- 
ing in numbers and efficiency. Its present membership 
is about as large as ever, through all changes. Its house 
of worship and other appointments are convenient, at- 
tractive and well maintained. Its history is dear to all 
her sons and daughters wherever found. 

The first pastor of the Orange church was Rev. 
Erastus Scranton. He was a native of Madison. He was 
a strong, tall, farmer-looking man. His father once 
speaking of him said, "Erastus was preaching the Gos- 
pel to the everlasting heathen of North Milford." But he 
proved useful and was deservedly greatly respected. He 
gathered, wrote out and deposited in the Town Clerk's 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 25 

office a considerable history of Milford which is still ex- 
tant. Mr. Scranton was settled July, 1805, and dismissed 
Jan., 1827. The society greatly prospered under His 
ministry. 

The pastors of the Second Society after Mr. Tuller 
were, Rev. John Sherman, Rev. Caleb Pitkin, Rev. Jehu 
Clark, Rev. Asa M. Train, Rev. J. M. Sherwood, Rev. S. 
G. Dodd, Rev. William Schofield, Rev. William Nye Har- 
vey, Rev. George H. Griffin, Rev. Nathan G. Axtelle. 

The first Methodist preaching in Milford was by 
Jesse Lee in 1789, Sunday, Aug. i6th. He spoke in the 
Town house showing the need of preparing to meet God. 
He says, ''The house was crowded with people, and 
some of them appeared to be persons of note; and they 
were very attentive to what was spoken, and tears stole 
down from several eyes, while solemnity sat upon their 
countenances. I felt great liberty in telling the people 
what It was to be prepared to meet God, and the com- 
fcjrtable consequences of such preparation." Later he 
says, "I hope my labors will not be in vain in the Lord 
at this place. When I was done I came through the 
crowd, mounted my horse and set off without having any 
invitation to call at any man's house. This is the third 
time I have preached at this place, and have not yet be- 
come acquainted with any person. If I can but be use- 
ful, I am willing to remain unknown among men." After 
Lee, a few favored the Methodist way and had occasional 
meetings. A local preacher from Bridgeport, Mr. Silli- 
man, who manufactured shirts and sold them here during 
the week, conducted services on the Sabbath. Tiie un- 
apprcciative called him "Old Shirt Sillimaii." Dea. 
Willis Allen of Orange often came and held meetings. 
He had a strong voice which he used to its utmost power. 
A Mr. Waterbury then came. He had been a sailor, in- 
terested the sailors and a number were convertetl. The 



126 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

school house near Col. Ford's was a place of frequent 
meetings. Then Bristol's shoe shop, which was moved 
up the North street, was used. Elihu Baldwin's shop was 
another meeting place. Elder Heman Bangs tells us, 
"Monday, August i6th, 1836, by special request I visited 
Old Milford — a new place for Methodism. The labors 
of a local preacher have been wonderfully blessed, and 
he has, under the direction of the Presiding Elder, gath- 
ered a class of nearly sixty members. I preached twice, 
and administered the Sacraments of Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper." He came a number of times and at 
length his own son, Stephen B. Bangs, began his pastoral 
life here in 1845. He has left this record: "1845, May, 
The conference has done, and I have been appointed to 
this place (Milford), New Haven District, Conn. Here 
I arrived yesterday. O that God would fire me with love 
divine, and with quenchless zeal for the spread of his 
glory in the conversion of precious souls!" "Wednesday, 
June 25, My heart is much encouraged at seeing an in- 
creased desire for holiness and the revival of God's work." 
Soon after, he went to camp meeting at Stepney, preached, 
took cold, and ran into a rapid decline, dying before his 
term was ended at Milford. The Methodists have since 
fairly held on in the good work, though not much in- 
creased in numbers. 

A Baptist church which owed its origin to Rev. Jas. 
Linsley was organized at Milford August 28th, 1831. 
Preaching was kept up in the old Town hall, which was 
bought for the purpose, until a new and more suitable 
house was erected. Rev. Oliver H. Hammond, a man of 
high scientific attainments and a fluent speaker, is re- 
membered as one of their ministers, very useful and 
much respected. The growth of the Town did not war- 
rant so many churches, and the Baptists declined in num- 
bers until they thought best to identify themselves with 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, .NMLFORl). 1 27 

Other congregations and sell their house of worship. It 
is now incorporated with the large structure which serves 
for Union School, T(i\vn Hall and other Town offices. 
The Baptist church audience room is the Town Hall. 
During the existence of that church immersions were per- 
formed by the west side of the bridge, in front of the First 
Congregational Church. 

Several other matters which might properly pertain 
to a narrative of the Old First Church are necessarily 
passed over in this review, such as schools, educated men 
and women, reform movements, benevolent organizations 
and work, libraries, &c., &c. But the limitations of time 
and space confine us to the narrow line so far followed. 
We add 

A FEW RFFIJ^CTIONS. 

First: The early settlers shoived just ideas of personal 
obligations and honor in both religious and civil affairs. 
Each was expected, and did according to his ability. 

Second: They always put fonaard their 7c>orthiest, 
most honest and dignified citizens to places of trust. They 
honored themselves through the men they chose to rep- 
resent them. The pastors and officers this Church chose 
have uniformly been men of more than average ability 
and worth. Several of them have been deservedly and 
widely honored. The most successful have been the most 
spiritual. In promoting spiritual life they most effect- 
ively promoted every other good and desirable thing. 

Third: Through all this history the membership of 
Church and Society have insisted upon their rights. The 
peaceable and prosperous periods were when pastors and 
others carefully recognized the duty of heeding the or- 
derly expressed will of the membership. 

Fourth: ft must he admitted that much has been 



128 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

learned and improved. The good things were not all in 
the past. 

Fifth: There is a greatly improved sentiment, feeling 
and practice between Christians and Churches who differ in 
creed and polity. People do not say such hard things of 
each other. The Congregational view is accepted prac- 
tically in other churches. What Episcopal or Methodist 
Bishop would now think of sending a minister to a 
church unless that church were \Villing to have him? 
Nor would a Bishop keep such minister in a church any 
longer than he was wanted by the church. There is a 
growing disposition to unite in Christian labors and wor- 
ship, to make common cause in all reform and educational 
movements. 

Sixth: ]Ve observe the inexorable justice of time in 
the reputation of ministers, members and churches. They 
go into history according to their actual deserts. If they 
do worthy things, serve their generation "by the will of 
God," accomplish any real service for mankind, it is cer- 
tain sooner or later to appear. It will be manifest at 
some time, nor can any efforts of envious enemies pre- 
vent. They may burn a martyr's bones, blacken his 
memory with vile accusations, desecrate his tomb, scatter 
his ashes to the four winds of heaven, yet his good work 
will ultimately get appropriate record and honor. On 
the other hand, all the blowing of trumpets, subsidizing 
newspapers, building costly monuments or memorials, 
eulogising sermons, addresses, &c., cannot perpetuate a 
good name for a self-seeking, crafty or bad man. It is 
an eternal law, "By their fruits ye shall know them " 
"Do men gather figs of thistles ? " Each goes to his 
grave and his works do follow him. "The memory of 
the righteous is blessed, while the name of the wicked 
shall rot." "The righteous shall be had in everlasting - 
remembrance." 



HYMN. 

Contr.buted by G. W. Bainl, U. S. Army. 

Our father's Crod, within whose sight 
A thousand years are as one day, 
We, whose swift years rest not nor stay, 
Turn unto thee, our hope our hi^ht. 

Here, where of old our fathers prayed, 
With holy awe we bow the knee ; 
Their church, their state, they built on thee, 
The firm foundation here they laid. 

That each, unvexed by priest, seeks God, 
That man, not caste nor birth bears sway, 
Our thanks ascend to thee to-day, 
Who led'st the way our fathers trod. 

A feeble band in wilds remote. 
Their strength was the Eternal God ; 
His flock he guarded with his rod. 
They walked thro' cleft seas that he smote. 

This prayer, our God, to thee we bring. 
"Safe guard their land in which we dwell," 
While of yon stream they loved so well, 
The rippling waves their requiem sing. 



ADDRESS. 

After the singing of the hymn, Rev. Newell M. Cal- 
houn of Canandaigua, N. Y., was announced to speak ^n 
the CHARACTER OF OUR ANCESTORS. Mr. 
Calhoun said that the lateness of the hour, and the weari- 
ness of the congregation, together with his desire to re- 
,tain the good will of those present, prevented his delivering 
the address which had been announced. He would say 
just a word or two of congratulation, if they would bear 
with him for a few moments. Much had been said of 
the prominent leaders in the Church for the last two hun- 
dred and fifty years; may we not stop for a moment and 
give a thought to the unnamed, forgotten fathers and 
mothers, who by faith "wrought righteousness" in the 
privacy of their homes, and among their friends and 
neighbors, training their children for God ? Their names 
have not been spoken to-day, but their virtues have been 
wrought into the very life of this Church and community. 
They are built into this Church, as they are mto the tem- 
ple of God. The First Church of Milford does not rest 
upon "seven pillars," but upon every godly life that has 
been builded into it. Remembering your history, and 
the power you have been in the town, state, and indeed 
throughout the world, where your sons and daughters 
have gone along with your gifts, I congratulate you; and 
indeed I congratulate myself for the privilege which I 
had, of helping to make in some measure a few years of 
your history. I cannot think that the best of your life 
and influence is behind you. The inspiration of this 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 131 

day's review will surely inspire the hearts of the young 
to new loyalty and love for this dear old Church. She is 
worthy of the best they have to give to her. 

The Memorial Bridge, which spans your beautiful 
river, is a fitting type of this Church of the living God 
On it's capping stones have been carved the names of the 
men and women who laid the foundations of church and 
state. The solidity of material, the rock foundation upon 
which it rests, and the thoroughness of it's construction, 
all assure its permanence. But this Church of our Lord 
Jesus Christ is more enduring, for it spans the river of 
time and rests, piers and abutments, on the shores of 
FLternity. Over it throngs of godly men and women 
have gone, whose names are written in the Lamb's Book 
of Life. Let the Church stand, then, bridging this fast 
flowing stream, upheld and supported chictly by the fact 
that its foundations are largely resting on the eternal 
foundations, even the Rock of Ages. And let your sons 
and daughters pass over it as have their parents, to that 
land which is afar off, but ever near to hearts of faith. 



The Present Condition of the Church. 

REV. FRANK L. FERGUSON. 

On the occasion of laying the corner stone of the 
Bunker Hill monument Daniel Webster said: "Human 
beings are composed not of reason only, but of imagina- 
tion also and sentiment; and that is neither wasted nor 
misapplied, which is appropriated to the purpose of giv- 
ing right direction to sentiments and opening proper 
springs of feeling in the heart." The child's birthday 
party, the marriage anniversar}' and the family reunion 
are more than idle pastimes of domestic life. Every 
country has its memorial days and centennials, which do 
much to form and develop the national genius. It 
might be expected also that the record of a religion of 
divine origin and power would be punctuated by the nar- 
ratives of conspicuous events, worthy of future com- 
memoration. The Sabbath and the Passover were ap- 
pointed to the Jews for memorial days. The great festi- 
vals of the Israelites were kept for the fostering of a 
religious sentiment, and were largely instrumental in 
anchoring the faith of the people to the God of Abra- 
ham, Isaac and Jacob. The Christian church has done 
well to observe Christmas and Easter with appropriate 
services, and to preserve in their purity and sacredness 
the Lord's Day and the Lord's Supper. We speak some- 
times disparagingly of the symbols, sacraments and fes- 
tivals of the Christian church, but it may be seriously 
doubted if any Christian feeling or sentiment could have 
been kept alive in the hearts of men without a due re- 
gard for them. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. I33 

A custom of recognized merit in domestic, national 
and religious life may be properly adopted and apprecia- 
ted by local churches. Indeed a chur,ch, that can find no 
occasion for an anniversary or commemoration of some 
marked event in its history, may well ask why it exists at 
all. David's own gratitude for divine mercy was won- 
derfully awakened, when, he remembered how God had 
also "made known his ways unto Moses and his acts unto 
the children of Israel." The present generation in any 
church should be able to find great inspiration in its past 
triumphs If God be with His churches, they must have 
their monumental days. 

There is a retrospection which serves to fill the heart 
with ignoble contentment in things attained and makes 
the past only a ground of excuse for present inactivity 
or for a want of hope and enterprise in the future. But 
there is also a review of bygone experiences and events, 
which must fill the soul with vivid emotions of thanks- 
giving and a brighter faith in (iod. In a certain sense 
the present and future have their roots in the past. We 
who live to-day are but the guardians, supporters and 
perpetuators of the civil and religious institutions which 
have been developing for thousands of years, for I am 
far from supposing that they date no farther back than 
Pilgrim's and Plymouth Rock. The good of all the centur- 
ies has entered more or less into the intellectual and moral 
resources of the present generation, augmenting mind and 
giving bias to soul. We are plants whose roots run back 
to antediluvian soil, being nourished by the culture of 
every generation. 'I'he soul-stirring truths, which actua- 
ted the pioneers of this community two hundred and 
fifty years ago, first loomed up in the fog of Judea. To 
Jesus Christ must we bring to-day our largest tribute of 
praise for what wc are and wiiat our church is. 

The touching, glowing accounts of the origin and 



.134 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

growth of this Church to which you all have listened 
with the most intense interest, the biographical sketches 
of its godly and efiflcient pastors, the recital of the social, 
political and religious conditions of the times in which 
this aged Church began its life, the consideration of the 
thousands who have been baptized at its altars and ad- 
mitted into its fellov/ship whose spiritual influence has 
blessed this and other communities, must have impressed 
you all with the propriety of this quarto-millenial cele- 
bration. No glory has been added to the names of those, 
who have been prominently before us, by the services of 
to-day; but in our own hearts have been aroused feelings 
and convictions which have made the present seem to be 
crowded with tremendous obligations, and which will tell 
for the better upon our lives in the future. The inheri- 
tance seems too large for us to use rightly. Our only 
hope is in Him, whose wisdom never permits responsibil- 
ties to exceed privileges. 

I have no words with which to express my own grat- 
itude and that of this Church to God for the perfect 
weather of to-day, for the hearty response so many of you 
have made to our invitation to be present on this joyful 
occasion; and especially for the generous gifts of the 
friends, who have honored the memory of six of the for- 
mer pastors by these costly and elegant tablets; and for 
the magnificent addresses delivered here to-day, which 
represent much labor of love, and will constitute a full 
and reliable history of this venerable church. I am al- 
most humiliated by any attempt to indicate in behalf of 
the Church a sufficient appreciation of your presence 
with us. We are upon the mountain top of transfigured 
joy and glory. 

A memorial day of this character should serve two 
purposes. It should recall the past, and it should point 
to the future. We have been made to rejoice to-day in 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORU. 1 35 

the spiritual relationship we have with the godly men 
and women who have worshipped here for two centuries 
and a half: and all the time the thought has been crowd- 
ing in upon us that we are also the pioneers of the semi- 
millenium of this Church's history. Behold our respon- 
sibilities as well as our inheritance I What this Church 
may be on the occasion of its five hundredth anniversary 
will be conditioned equally upon what we are and are do- 
ing, as upon what Peter I'rudden, his associates and their 
successors were and did accomplish. 

It seems very befitting, therefore, that these happy, 
memorial services should not close, without a brief state- 
ment concerning the departments of our church life and 
work. 

And at this point I shall discontinue the address, as 
it was prepared for delivery on the Anniversary Day. The 
whole of the address was omitted then for want of time. 
After a very short report of the condition of the Church 
and Sunday-school, I will substitute for the balance of 
the address much more extended accounts of the other 
auxiliary societies, prepared since for special publication 
in this Memorial Volume. 

* 
* * 

THE CHL'RCH. 

Its membership is now five hundred and ten, of 
whom about fifty are absent. Morning and evening ser- 
vices of worship are held on the Lord's Day, and a prayer 
and conference meeting on Friday nights. All the ser- 
vices are well attended. The problem of the Sunday 
evening services is no nightmare to ours as to many 
churches. Nor do we find that the prayer service of the 
Y. P. S. C. E., which immediately precedes has militated 
against the attendance (jf the young people upon the 
regular church services. Thirtv have been receivetl into 



136 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

our fellowship during the last pastoral year, most of whom 
have joined the Church on confession of faith. The an- 
nual home expenses of the Church are about $3,200 and 
are raised by the renting of the pews. The benevolences 
amount to $1,200 a year and are gathered by the weekly 
envelope system. More than two hundred of the mem- 
bers and friends of the Church give regularly and sys- 
tematically for missionary purposes. That the activity of 
the Chnrch does not diminish with advancing age will 
appear in the reports of the various auxiliary societies. 

THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 

It is a model in many respects. It is well organized 
and thoroughly furnished unto every good work. Every 
officer and teacher is an intelligent, consecrated Chris- 
tian. No boy or girl in the school need pass the period 
of youth without sufficient biblical instruction and Chris- 
tian example to commend Christ unto them. The school 
is supported by the Church and uses its own offerings 
for benevolence. There are two departments, the adult 
and primary, each having its own officers and exercises. 
There is a large and well-assorted library. The mem- 
bership is over three hundred, the average attendance 
being about one hundred and ninety. 



"Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor, 

Canon Farrar says "Results the most vast are brought 
about by the aggregate of small separate exertions." A 
latent energy, which the Church had been slow to utilize, 
was the young people, whose fitness and power for Chris- 
tian activity the Church had failed to appreciate and 
recognize. In November, 1884, the Rev. N. M. Calhoun 
suggested to the young people of the Church the desira- 
bility of their organizing for more efficient Christian ser- 
vice. A Young People's Association was ft)rmed at once, 
and in March, 18S7, it took the form of a Christian En- 
deavor Society. In one year the new society's member- 
ship had increased from twenty-four to one hundred and 
ten, including active and associate members. The wis- 
dom and value of the organization were doubted at first 
by many of the older members of the Church; but as 
progress was made not only in numbers but also in all 
good work, those who doubted at first its usefulness soon 
rejoiced in and sympathized with the work. As one re- 
sult sixty-five of the members of the society have entered 
into full fellowship with the Church during the five years. 
The largest number during any one year was received by 
the Church the last year, there being twenty-two in all. 

The present membership consists of one huiulred 
and thirty in active, forty-one in associate and eleven in 
honorary relation. Each year has found the work more 
firmly established both in tiie ability of the members, 
and in the (jutreach to larger and more fruitful activity. 

Twenty-five hundred dollars have been raised and 
expended by the society, the income being devoted to 

*Tliis report was prepared by Miss Mary Kllen Clarke, seerctary 
of Y. r. S. C. E. 



138 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

such purposes as the purchase of the piano in the chapel, 
the gasalier in the parlor, the elegant bookcase and rail- 
ing for the Sunday-school library, the upholstering of the 
audience room and contributions for choir and mission- 
ary purposes. The lecture courses and classes in v.ocal 
culture of the last two seasons have been a source of 
great pleasure and instruction, and have elevated the 
taste of the community for a higher and more intellectual 
class of entertainments as well as added interest in the 
music of the services of the Church. These new lines 
of work and influences were' marked out by our pastor, 
who has also drawn the society into much closer sympathy 
with the active duties of the Church. 

Some of those who started with the society in its in- 
fancy have become prominent as officers and deacons of 
the Church, graduating after faithful training and ser- 
vice in the society into a sphere of larger responsibility 
and usefulness. One gratifying aspect of the work of 
the society the last year has been the step forward by 
the young women, who have consented to conduct the 
prayer services and have taken much larger part by tes- 
mony and prayer in all the devotional meetings of the 
society and Church. 

This school within the Church has thus developed 
the Christian character of the young men and women, 
and stimulated their mental powers, and inspired a steady, 
uniform and earnest effort for the saving of souls and 
the building up of stronger characters. The labors of 
this society have formed no small part of the religious 
history of the Church during these late years; and the 
Church of the future is thus being educated and molded 
for more intelligent, consecrated and successful service. 



*\Voman's Foreioin Missionary Society. 

One pleasant afternoon in October, 1877, a com[)any 
of ladies gathered in the chapel of the First Church on 
the invitation of Rev. Mrs. J. A. Biddle to hear from the 
lips of Mrs. Snow, of the Micronesian mission — that de- 
voted and now sainted missionary — the story of the great 
needs of the heathen world. Her words were well cal- 
culated to arouse an earnest desire in the heart of every 
Christian woman present to be a helper in the grand 
work of foreign missions. At this preliminary meeting 
Mrs. Woolsey and Mrs. Hart, president of the New Ha- 
ven branch, made some apt and inspiring remarks; but 
to Mrs. Biddle is mostly due the enthusiasm that awak- 
ened and stimulated the ladies present to unfurl the ban- 
ner of foreign missions in our midst. 

Twenty-five women at once pledged themselves to 
lay the corner stone of a society to be known as the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, whose object should 
be to cultivate a missionary spirit among the ladies of the 
churches and to raise funds for the work abroad. The 
ladies of the First and Plymouth Churches joined to- 
gether in the organization of the local society, and the 
membership doubled within a short time. Mrs. Biddle 
was a faithful and efficient president, until her failing 
health necessitated tlie transference of the duties of her 
office to her assistant, Mrs. Owen T. Clark, who has ever 
since discharged all its obligations with marked capabil- 
ity- 

The society has made generous contributions, as- 

*This Tcpon was prepared by Miss Mary Ellen Clarke, sc.nt.Trv 
of W. I". M. S. 



l40 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

sisting for the first years of its history in the support of 
a teacher among the Spanish at San Sebastian. For the 
last six years the gifts have been devoted to the support 
of Mrs. Ehzabeth DeForest at Sendai, Japan. The ef- 
forts of the women have not been directed only to the 
raising of money, but also to the opening up of paths of 
study and enlightenment on the foreign missionary field. 
To all those, who have shared in the privileges of this 
labor, it has been an influence, spiritual, educational and 
refining, awakening a deeper sympathy for the poor, suf- 
fering and Christless masses at home as well as abroad. 
Young Ladies' Mission Circles have been organized 
at different times under the direction of members of this 
auxiliary; and the present Rosebud Mission Circle of boys 
and girls had its origin in the heart of Mrs. Chas. A. 
Smith, her desire being that the children should be guid- 
ed and instructed in those things that will lead their sym- 
pathies and gifts in the direction of this great work for 
Christ and humanity. 



■'The Ladies' Benevolent Union. 

This auxiliary society was organized May 13, 1886. 
Previous to this time associations of the women of the 
Church had existed at various intervals for special mis- 
sionary work or for necessary improvements of the 
Church, and after having done most commendable work 
had disbanded or lost their vitality. The pastor earnest- 
ly desired to unite the ladies of the Church into one or- 
ganization, which would include in its labors all those 
branches of Christian work known as "woman's work." 
The union was suggested and established that the women 
might "systematically and harmoniously make the most 
of their time, talents and money in the Lord';; work." 
There were eighteen charter members, but the member- 
ship soon grew to the number of seventy-six. 

The constitution provided for five departments of 
work, viz: Home and foreign missionary, parish, temper- 
ance, social and juvenile, each to be superintended by a 
committee of five members. The officers were to con- 
sist of a president, two vice-presidents, secretary and 
treasurer. The members were divided into two classes, 
active and honorary, the latter including any men who 
might wish to aid the women in their work by the pay- 
ment of a membership fee. 

During the first year the semi-monthly meetings were 
held in the "bell room," but ils accommodations being 
insufficient the ladies determined to have a parlor and 
kitchen for their convenience and comfort. More en- 
thusiasm could not be enlisted in any w(nk, tiian charac- 

*This report was prepared by Mrs. Adelia Elmer, to whose de- 
voted and cfticient labors as president of the l^nion has been largely 
due its remarkable prosperity. 



142 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

terized the efforts of the women in this new enterprise; 
and overcoming a few obstacles they pushed on vigor- 
ously to its final completion. At the first social and sup- 
per held within the new and beautiful rooms the presi- 
dent was able to announce that all financial obligations 
to the Ecclesiastical society for the expense of building 
had been fully met. To the persistent zeal of our pres- 
ent pastor the Ladies' Benevolent Union and the Young 
People's Society give the chief credit, that on the two 
hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the old Church, the 
interior of its house of worship was newly decorated and 
its seats richly upholstered. More than two thousand 
dollars have been raised and collected by the union for 
various purposes. Its efforts have not been confined to 
our own Church alone, but each year donations have been 
made for missionary work and barrels of clothing have 
been sent to Nebraska, Kansas, and Thomasville, Ga. ; 
and needy ones in our own parish and town have been 
aided. The Rosebud Mission Circle have worked for the 
Indian Training School at Santee, Neb. The union 
identified itself with the Conn. Woman's Home Miss. 
Society by becoming auxiliary to it in March, 1888, and 
by the use of the mite or blessing boxes in the homes of 
the members a good deal of money has been raised for 
its work. 



IIISTORICAI. SERMON. 

PREACHED IN THE FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST IN 

MILFORD, SUNDAY, JULY 9, 1 876, HY THE 

PASTOR, REV. J. A. IJIDDLE. 



Te.\t: Gen. .\ii: 1-2. — Now the Lord had said to .\bram Get thee 
out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's 
house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of 
thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name 
great; and thou shalt be a blessing. 



Upon a beautiful April Sabbath, two hundred and 
thirty-eight years ago, a noble band of Christians began 
the worship of Almighty God along these shores. At 
the head of the harbor of New Haven stood an ancient 
forest tree, whose wide-spreading branches formed a fit- 
ting temple. The oppressive stillness of an unbroken 
wilderness awed every soul into a solemnity we can never 
feel beneath the framework of our puny hands. 'I'here 
the choral of praise began, whose sounding measures 
have been borne along from generation to generation 
down the centuries to us. Upon that Sabbath the Rev. 
Peter Prudden, whose name is so venerated in the annals 
of this Church, preached from the words of J(jhn the 
Baptist: "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight." 
It was a te.xt well calculated to express the purpose that 
inspired that heroic company as they sought these deso- 
late coasts. Whether they knew it or not they were the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way 
of the Lord. If we could read this history with inspired 



144 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

minds, we would see it written thus: The Lord said unto 
them, get you out of your fatherland and the home of 
your kindred, and go ye into a land that I will tell you of, 
and I will make of you a great nation, and the land to 
which I will send you will I give to you and to your seed 
forever, and in you and in your seed shall all the king- 
dams of the earth be blessed. But our eyes are holden. 
We cannot read the inner history of this chosen people. 
It would need a Moses or Isaiah to recite how God did 
walk and talk with them, how his hand was in all the 
events of their wonderful history. It is our humbler 
task to record the outer and manifest events just as they 
occurred in connection with the establishment and growth 
of this ancient Church of Christ. 

The company who first broke the silence of this 
wilderness came fiom England in the year 1637. They 
landed at Boston under the leadership of Rev. John 
Davenport, Mr. Theophilus Eaton and Rev. Peter Prud- 
den. Declining the earnest invitation of the Boston au- 
thorities to settle in that colony, they set their faces to 
this then distant land. They desired to get beyond the 
reach of the interference of the king of England, who 
was then persecuting the Dissenters from the Established 
Church at home, and was even reaching out his hand to 
vex the souls of the saints on this side of the Atlantic. 
They had formed a definite purpose to establish a thor- 
oughly Christian commonwealth with no king but Jesus 
of Nazareth. For this they had left England, and for 
this they declined to remain in Boston. They would get 
upon virgin soil, and by the grace of God establish the 
kingdom of God on earth. 

On the i8th of April, 1638, after a two weeks' voyage 
from Boston, they spent their first Sabbath at New Ha- 
ven. There were as yet three distinct bands in the com- 
pany: Mr. Davenport's, which remained at New Haven; 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MH.FORD. 1 45 

Mr. \Vhitefield's, which settled at C.uih'orcl, and Mr. 
Prudden's, which came to Milfortl. This last band was 
then quite small, containing not more than twenty-two 
families. They were probably, originally, from County 
Hereford, Eng. They remained at New Haven until the 
following year, during which time Mr. Prudden preached 
for the people of Wethersfield, Conn. When he re- 
turned to New Haven he brought with, him a large re- 
enforcement to his flock, so that at the time they 
were ready to come to their new home thcv numbered 
fifty-four families, or over two hundred individuals. 
Those who came from Wethersfield were originally from 
Esse.\ Co., Eng. Among these were some of the most 
prominent names in Milford, such as John Astwood, one 
of the original founders of this Church; Robert Treat, 
then a young man, who afterward became so famous in 
the history of Conn., and was the last survi -or of the first 
settlers; Jasper Gunn, the physician; Rev. John Sher- 
man, afterward chosen teacher in the C^uirch. 

Early in the year 1639, Feb. 12, they began the set- 
tlement of the town, though no government was formed 
until late in the autumn, Nov. 29. In the meantime the 
Church was organized at New Haven. Seven of their 
best and most tried men were selected for this purpose. 
In this selection all took part. These were called the 
Seven Pillars according to the teachings of Mr. Daven- 
port from the Scripture, "Wisdom hath builded her 
house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." They were 
Peter Prudden, William I'^owler, Edmund Tapp, Zacha- 
riah Whitman, John Astwood, 'riiomas Buckingham and 
'I'homas Welch. They were all past middle life e.xcept 
Peter Prudden and Thomas Welch, several of them pos- 
sessed of a classical education. 

We iiave no record of the method of the formation of 
the Church but this was doubtless the programme: A sort 



146 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

of council was called of all the churches within reach. 
We may be sure that the churches at Hartford and New 
Haven were among the number. The council met "in a 
mighty barn" about eight o'clock in the morning and 
spent four or five hours m preaching and prayer. Then 
the Seven Pillars stood forth in the congregation and 
gave a recital of their religious experience and belief. 
They were questioned closely until all were satisfied of 
their fitness. Then they together recited the covenant 
into which they enter. 

"Since it hath pleased ye Lord of his infinite 
goodness and free grace to call us (a company of 
poor miserable wretches) out of ye world unto fellow- 
ship with himselfe in Jesus Christ, and to bestow 
himself upon us by an everlasting covenant of his free 
grace sealed in ye blood of Jesus Christ, to be our God, 
and to make and avouch to us to be his people, and hath 
undertaken to circumcise our hearts, that we may love ye 
Lord our God and feare him, and walk in his wayes: we, 
therefore, do this day avouch ye Lord to be our God, 
even Jehovah, the only true God, the Almighty Maker of 
heaven and earth, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ; and wee do this day enter into an holy covenant 
with ye Lord and one with another, through ye grace and 
help of Christ strengthening us (without whom we can 
do nothing), to deny ourselves and all ungodliness and 
worldly lusts, and all corruptions and pollutions wherein 
in any sort wee have walked. And do give up ourselves 
wholly to ye Lord Jesus Christ, to be taught and gov- 
erned by him in all relations, conditions and conversa- 
tions in this world; avouching him to be our only Prophet 
and Teacher, our only Priest and Propitiation, our only 
King and Lawgiver. And we do further bind ourselves 
in his strength, to walk before him, in all professed sub- 
jection to all his holy ordinances, according to ye rule 



FIRS I' CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 47 

of the gospell, and also to walk together with his church 
and ye members thereof, in all brotherly love and holy 
watchfulness, to ye mutual building up one another in 
Fayth and Love. All which ye Lord help us to perform, 
through his rich grace in Christ according to his Cove- 
nant. Amen." 

After this recital the members of the council gave 
them the right hand of fellowship and the work of or- 
ganization was ended. 

To these Seven Pillars others were added from time 
to time, si.\ at New Haven, the rest after the Church had 
been fully established at Milford, which occurred about 
March i, 1640. The first person admitted at Milford 
was Win. East, March 8. 

The Church now called Rev. Mr. I^rudden to the 
office of pastor. He was ordained to this work at New 
Haven, as he records: I, Peter Prudden, was called to 
the office of a pastour in this Church, & ordayned at 
New Haven, by Zachariah Whitman, William Fowler, 
Edmund Tapp, designed by ye Church to that work; 
Zachariah Whitman being ye moderator for that meeting 
in a day of solemn humiliation, upon ye third Wednes- 
day in April, 1640, being, I remember, ye 8th day of ye 
month. 

The Church was by no means fully officered yet. They 
had a pastor, probably one deacon, they still wanted a 
teacher— a sort of assistant pastor— a ruling elder ami dea- 
cons. For teacher they chose one of their number, Rev. 
John Sherman. He was a man of first rate abilities. Born 
in Oldham, Esse.x Co., Eng., 1613, educated at Cambridge, 
where he refused from conscientious scruples to take a 
degree, he came to America in 1634, "Hoping," says 
Cotton Mather, "that by going over the water, he should 
be like a man going under the earth, lodged where the 
wicked cease from troubling and the wearv arc at rest." 



148 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Young as he was he immediately took rank with the 
ablest preachers of the colony. "He refused the call of 
this Church," as Mather says, "out of an ingenuous jeal- 
ousy, lest the worthy person who might have been his 
colleague should have thereby suffered some inconven- 
ience." The Church did not see fit to call another man 
for teacher and the office became extinct. They 
seem to have been in no haste to elect a ruling elder but 
directed their energies next toward the erection of a 
meeting house. The five judges of the town were di- 
rected, Nov. 24, 1640, "to lay out a meeting house 30 feet 
square after such manner as they shall judge most con- 
venient for the public good." 

If we judge from hints in the town records and the 
general style of church buildings of that time the old 
meeting house can be easily described. It stood a few 
rods south of the site of the present building, facing 
west. The massive timbers of its frame were covered by 
rent oak clapboards. Its four sided peaked roof was 
surmounted by a small turret, in which were placed a drum 
to call the people together and a sentinel to give the 
alarm in case of approaching danger. A single entrance 
on the west side admitted the entire population. As one 
entered he saw an aisle leading from the door directly to 
the lofty pulpit, with its rude sounding board above it. 
In front of the pulpit was an elevated seat for the ruling 
elder; lower still, just behind the communion table, was a 
seat for the deacons. On either side of the aisle were 
several plain benches, capable of seating four or 
five each. Along the sides of the house, running east 
and west, were two or three long seats, and at the sides 
of the pulpit were several shorter ones. Back by the 
door two seats were fitted up for the guardsmen with 
their old matchlock muskets. No ceiling intervened to 
hide the roof, no galleries marred the full view of the 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil, FORD. I49 

walls. No ornament could by any possibility be found 
to take the mind from the solemn religious service unless 
we could call the small diamond shaped window panes 
ornaments. Long afterward, changes were made, a ceil- 
ing was put up, galleries were erected, a bell took the 
place of the drum, and a new door was cut in the west 
side. 

The (Church being so well housed, they looked 
around for some one to sit in the seat of the ruling elder. 
After the usual fasting and prayer they "pitched upon" 
Zachariah Wliitman, one of the original Seven Pillars, at 
present a deacon. He was ordained with due formali- 
ties, Jan. 26, 1645, by a council formed by the elders and 
messengers from the churches of New Haven and Strat- 
ford. This office Mr. Whitman filled until his death, .\pril 
25, 1666. 

The next subject that occupied the minds of the 
brethren was the selection of suitable men for deacons. 
A day was set for that purpose, and on July 3, 1645, ten 
were placed in nomination. .\ vote showed a majority 
in favor of (ieo. Clark, Jr., and Benjamin Fenn. liut 
because the vote was not unanimous the final choice was 
delayed until the character of these men could be thor- 
oughly investigated. For two years the business re- 
mained unsettled, then "Bro. Fenn was called and or- 
dained" but "Bro. Clark was respited," says the record, 
"because his wife was afflicted with lightness in the head." 
Thus the matter rested for about si.x years, when (ieo. 
Clark, Sr., a carpenter, was chosen and ordained deacon. 
The Church was now in complete running order, and if 
we can go back 222 years we will sj^end a week with 
them and see how they conduct their solemn services. 
We will enter the town uj^on the morning of July S, 
1654. Scattered along the banks of the Wcpawaug river 
and tile West l^nd brook we see the houses or over So 



150 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

families. Tliere are Mr. Fowler's mill below the lower 
bridge and the little meeting house by the upper bridge. 
An irregular tract of land about one mile in extent is 
surrounded by a wooden palisade. Within the palisade 
are all the houses, and beyond except in some cultivated 
fields, the country appears desolate in consequence of the 
great fire that swept across it nine years before. The 
men move abroad cautiously, armed with their mus- 
kets, for the savages are troublesome. 

On Tuesday evening the brethren and sisters will 
meet together in various private houses for prayer. Fri- 
day afternoon they meet again in the meeting house for 
prayer and lecture. Saturday is a busy day, for food 
must be prepared for Sabbath and all must be completed 
before the going down of the sun. The young people 
go in the afternoon into the meeting house to be cate- 
chised and instructed. Early on Sabbath morning, before 
nine o'clock, we hear the loud beating of the drum in the 
turret of the meeting house, and as we pass along our way 
we see the pathways lined with plainly dressed men, women 
and children, wending their silent way to the house of God. 
At the appointed time the sentinels are all stationed and 
the people are all in their places, ready to worship. There 
in the lofty pulpit sits the beloved pastor, Mr. Prudden, 
in the fifty-fourth year of his age. He is dressed in his 
gown as a minister of the Church of England. In the 
elevated seat in front of the pulpit sits the venerable 
Elder Whitman, with his psalm book in his hand. Lower 
still we see the Deacons, Benjamin Fenn and George 
Clark, Sr. Here on the right side of the aisle are the 
sun-browned, hard-handed men. There near the front 
is old Mr. Fowler, and there is the splendid form of Robert 
Treat, already the leading man in the colony, although 
but little past 30 years of age. There is the form of 
Thomas Buckingham, bowed with age. He is waiting 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 151 

for the summons from on high, which came three years 
later. There, too, is Thomas Welch, the youngest of the 
Seven Pillars and the last survivor of that immortal band. 
We miss the classic face of Capt. John Astwood, for he 
is now far across the sea, in London, dying. We look in 
vain, too, for that other "pillar," Kdmund Tapp. The snow 
has already fallen upon and melted from his unmarked 
grave in New Haven. He was the first of the sacred 
seven to enter upon his everlasting reward. But there is 
young Nicolas Camp, the keeper of the meeting house 
style, and Jasper Gunn, the physician. There are the Bald- 
wins, the Clarks, the Platts, the Botsfords, the MUeses, and 
many others whose names have passed into the history of 
Mil ford. 

Upon the left side of the aisle, at safe distance from 
their husbands, sit the brave women of the colony. Mrs. 
Prudden has the place of honor; the wives of church offi- 
cers and magistrates come next. We miss '.he form of 
the courageous Mrs. Beard, who was bereft of her hus- 
band upon the voyage to America and" left to bear the 
hardships of the wilderness with her family of si.x chil- 
dren. She could not bear the burden long. Already 
seven times the birds have come and gone since she laid 
her weary head down to sleep in the unnamed grave. 
Back by the door the guards are sitting by their arms, 
and all around, wherever they can find seats, we see the 
children, far enough from their devout parents to indulge 
in a little p'ivate whispering during the long service. 
The drum is silent. We rise to our feet and remain 
standing while Mr. Prudden leads us in a long, earnest 
prayer. That finished we resume our seats and listen to 
a careful exposition of a chapter from the Bible. TIkmi 
our venerable elder rises and slowly lines a psalm. We 
all join in singing, stopping at the end of each two lines 
to give time for our good elder to line the two following. 



152 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

We do not rise to sing, but when the pastor rises to an- 
nounce his text we rise and stand till he has finished read- 
ing. Then we seat ourselves as comfortably as possible 
to listen to the sermon. It is an earnest one, from a man 
full of "boiling zeal." We notice that he has no riianu- 
script before him but speaks forth fully and freely. The 
hour glass is beside him on the stand and he will not 
cease speaking till the last grain has run out. How in- 
tently do these people listen to the Word. They do not 
worship for form's sake as did many of their descendants, 
but they worship because they love to. The boys and 
girls do grow restless, maybe, and fall asleep or count 
the rafters of the roof or the diamond window panes or 
stealthily whisper about some exploit of the week, and 
covertly laugh at something which could stir the risibles 
of a boy- only. Uut the sermon is ended, then the prayer, 
the benediction, and we slowly pass out. The sun has 
reached the zenith, so we move briskly away to eat our 
cold lunch and get back in time for the afternoon ser- 
vice at one o'clock. This time we have a prayer, a 
psalm, a sermon, then Mr. Prudden comes down from the 
pulpit to perform the solemn rite of baptism. John 
Rogers and his wife bring their little daughter Abigail, 
and Mr. Catfinch his little Mary. How seriously does 
Mr. Prudden speak to them and the congregation con- 
cerning the importance of the rite. Then we hear him 
repeat: "Abigail, I baptize thee, in the name of the 
Father and of the Son and of the Holy (Miost." Again 
the pastor resumes his seat and Deacon Benjamin Fenn 
rises in his place and says: "Brethren of the congrega- 
tion, now there is time left for contribution. Wherefore 
as God hath prospered you freely give." The magis- 
trates, Wm. Powler, Robert Treat and others, come for- 
ward and deposit their gifts in the box upon the com- 
munion table or at the deacons' feet. They are followed 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 53 

by the minister and elder, these by any one who has 
aught to give. The gifts are principally produce or some 
piece of silver, or, maybe, a book. There are no members 
to be admitted to-day so a psalm is lined and sung, the 
pastor prays again, pronounces the benediction ami the 
service of the Lord's day is ended. The sun is far in the 
west as we move slowly home. A sacred silence broods 
over everything, a silence which has not gone from our 
Sabbaths yet after the lapse of two hundred and twenty- 
two years. God grant it may remain with us forever. 
The sun goes down at last and the Sabbath is ended, but 
the evening shall not be passed in work or foolishness. 
Yet I fear that some of the young people will come to- 
gether at Mr. Tomlinson's public house, where, they will 
find plenty to drink and a room in which to dance and 
play shuffleboard. W'e have this to console us, however, 
that ne.xt year Mr. Tomlinson will be deprived of his li- 
cense and his house will be given to a better man. 

In 1656, the Church and colony received a dreadful 
stroke in the death of their pastor in the prime of life. 
Mr. Prudden was born in Edgeton, County of ^'ork, 
Eng. He was liberally educated, and regularly onlained 
by the Church of England. He was stationed in the 
County of Hereford, where he met with marked success. 
Being a puritan, he determined to come to this country. 
Many of his people came with him from the love they 
bore him and their Lord. Just before leaving England he 
married Johanna Boyce, who survived him nearly thirty 
years. 'I'o them were born nine children — three sons 
and si.K daughters. Mr. Prudden was a man well adapt- 
ed for the difficult position of jiastor of the church in the 
infant colony. "He had a singular faculty to qualify ex- 
asperated spirits," says Mather, and. I have no doubt, sin- 
gular patience to endure exasperating spirits, of which 
there are plenty in every new colony. He was undoubt- 



154 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

edly a great, good man. Not so stern as Davenport of 
New Haven, not so commanding as Hooker of Hartford, 
but it is no doubt true as Mather sa3's: "His death was 
felt by the whole colony as the fall of a pillar which 
made the whole fabrick to shake." 

He was earnestly religious and sought to influence 
the colony more from the pulpit as a religious teacher, 
than by direct interference in public affairs. He refused 
to serve as magistrate longer than a single year that he 
might give himself more perfectly to the ministry of the 
word and to prayer. The wisdom of his course and the 
power of the man were shown in the great peace and har- 
mony that prevailed during his lifetime. He did inter- 
fere to see that the law was properly enforced, but then 
only as a private citizen. He received no stated salary 
but was supported by gifts and grants of land. I believe 
the people planted and gathered his crops. But this he 
did not claim as a right but received as a free will offer- 
ing. He claimed no supremacy over them which his 
character and superior ability did not rightly give him. 
But as an equal he shared the burdens of the community. 
His property was taxed and he was compelled to keep 
in good shape his firearms and ammunition, though not 
called upon to stand guard. He was no pope, but simply 
an officer elected by the Church. He taught the Church 
her rights and duties, and so it was that this Church 
claimed and exercised the right to ordain her own pas- 
tors for the first fifty years of her existence. Mr. Prud- 
den himself, though a regularly ordained priest in the 
Church of England, considered himself unfitted for the 
position of pastor over this Church until she had or- 
dained him for that position. The Church allowed no 
other than their own pastor to admmister her sacraments, 
and when she had no pastor the children were taken to 
the neighboring churches for baptism. They carried the 



FIRST CHURCH OV CHRIST, MH.KORO. 1 55 

independence of the individual church to its extreme 
limit, acknowledging no authority but Christ. 

Much has been said concerning the law that gave the 
whole government of the town into the hands of church 
members. There was such a law. It was adoptedby vote of 
thewhole colony at a tmie when there were scarcely a dozen 
church members within her borders. It was in strict 
accordance with the principle on which the Common- 
wealth was to be established. It was to be a Christian 
state, with the gospel for its law and Jesus as its ruler. 
Of course, in such a state only those who were professed 
disciples of Christ had any fitness for government With- 
out question the principle was correct, but the possibility 
of carrying it out was doubtful, even to them. For in 
1643 we find six persons had been given the rights of 
freemen who were not church members. If they had 
not been influenced by the people of New Haven the law 
would have fallen into disuse at once. They were right 
in their conception of a state, but were unequal to the 
task of carrying it out. The spirit was willing but the 
flesh was weak. 

The 16 years of Mr. Prudden's ministry were years 
of quiet prosperity. He was ferrid and earnest as a 
preacher, but owing to his desire to keep the Church free 
from unworthy members, only loo were received by him 
into church fellowship. At his death the Church num- 
bered about 94 members in a population of about 500. 

For four years they sought in vain for one to fill the 
vacant pulpit. Thos. Buckingham went to l^oston in 
search of a minister, but he died shortly after his arrival, 
July 16, 1657. 

At length, Mr. Roger Newton was "pitched upon." 
And as they would choose no man to fill an office in a 
church of which he was not a member, Mr. Newton 
was received July 29, 1660, and as it i.s. recorded: 



156 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

"Aug. 22, of the same year, he was ordained Pas- 
tour with praier and ffasting, and ye laying on of ye 
hands of Zach. Whitman, Elder, John Fletcher, Deacon, 
and Mr. Robert Treat, Magistrate." But the record 
very carefully adds, "though not as Magistrate and Dea- 
con, but as appointed by ye Church to assist ye Ruling 
Elder in ye layeing on hands in ye name of ye Church." 

Mr. Newton was born and partially educated in Eng- 
land. He was a student at Harvard, but I think not a 
graduate of that college. He studied theology under 
his father-in law, Rev. Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, was 
ordained pastor of the infant church at Farmington, Ct., 
in 1645, from which position he was called to the pastor- 
ate of this Church. It will be observed that although he 
had been previously ordained, yet when he came here he 
was ordained as pastor over this Church. 

To encourage him to settle here in the Gospel min- 
istry the town voted that he should have "the house and 
home lot, the piece of upland beyond dreadful swamp 
bridge, 14 acres of meadow, and if he need more he shall 
have liberty to cut more." The house and accommoda- 
tions were to be his, "but if he shall go away he shall 
give it back to the town at a valuable consideration 
judged by indifferent parties." We will understand this 
when we remember that this was the condition upon 
which they allowed any man to settle in the town. If he 
removed, the town was to have the first right to purchase 
his propert3\ Other grants of land were made to him 
from time to time, amounting to thirty-eight acres. This 
was his salary, if we wish to call it so. It was the same 
with him as with the ruling elder,or with any valuable man, 
whom they wished to have in their colony. To encour- 
age him to come they gave him grants of land. On this 
same principle they gave Wm. Fowler a large grant to 
build a mill. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, iMII.FORD. 1 57 

Mr. Newton, I think, was l)y no means the equal of 
his predecessor. He is spoken of as a "sound and judic- 
ious preacher," but he was not equal to the situation. 
Disturbances arose in his parish beyond his power to 
control. It must be said, however, that when he took 
charge of the Church a new generation was coming upon 
the stage. A generation who knew little of the sacrifices 
their fathers had made for Christ's sake, and who pos- 
sessed far less of true christian zeal and deep religious 
principle than the generation then passing away. The 
effects of this change were soon visible in the increased 
formality in worship. The new generation were even 
more eager than their fathers had been to present their 
children for baptism. They esteemed it a great hardship 
that they were compelled to join the Church before bap- 
tism could be administered to their infants All New 
England was stirred by this conflict between the old and 
the new. The question of questions was: Who is a fit 
subject for baptism ? The one ])arty took the position 
held by the founder of this Church, that no one had a 
right to present his children for baptism who had not 
experienced a change of heart. The other party assumed 
that all men born in a christian land were believers, and 
as such had a right to have the seal of the covenant 
placed upon their offspring. It was a conflict over the 
question: Who is a believer? Both argued that be- 
lievers only had a right to present their children for bap- 
tism. P>ut the founders of this Church had a much 
higher conception of the christian faith and life than the 
others, ^^'hile they probably were wrong in refusing the 
name of believer to their opponents, and so were wrong 
in refusing baptism to their children, they were right in 
their lofty concei')tion of the christian life. They forgot 
that all men have not the same degree of faith. While 



l58 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

they held their own lofty faith they should not have been 
so hard upon their weaker brethren. 

Their weaker brethren, however, were right, no 
doubt, in claiming the right of baptism, but they should 
have claimed it on the ground that their faith was weak. 
And both parties should have seen that the task they had 
set out to accomplish, to establish a real kingdom of Christ, 
could not be done by men of less faith than the original 
settlers. To give up faith without giving up their primal 
purpose was foolishness. But no one wished to surren- 
der that great design. The old party felt that the high- 
est faith was needed, so were right. The new party saw 
no necessity of such mighty faith. They were wrong. 
But baptism is not to be withheld from people who are 
very wrong if they hold the name of Jesus in sacred rev- 
erence. This was the weak point in the position of the 
Church. When they saw the waning faith of their 
brethren they should have said: You may have the sac- 
raments of the Church, but you can have no part in the 
government of the Church. For the weak in faith need 
the sacraments but only the strong in faith know how to 
govern. That would have been a rational ground of con- 
flict and would have given the victory to the pure party. 
But when they asserted that nobody could be a believer 
in Jesus who was not possessed of Apostolic faith, they 
disfellowshiped the whole body of christians the world 
over and reduced Christendom to an absurdity. Defeat 
was inevitable and such a defeat as corrupted the Church, 
yea, degraded the Church in its very conception. That 
was fatal. Then came talk of a halfway covenant, which 
should permit parents of good moral character to bring 
their children to baptism. 

But a halfway covenant in a Congregational church 
when all are supposed to be equal m its government is 
an impossibility. For either the halfway covenant will 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 59 

supplant the whole covenant or it itself will be rejected. 
This the Church did not clearly see. Now, although it did 
not adopt the halfway covenant in theory, it did in prac- 
tice. It was not so strenuous in its demands for great 
faith in Jesus in its reception of members. There was a 
decline of spiritual life, brotherly love and public morals 
in spite of the efforts of the judicious pastor. 

In 1666, Mr. Newton lo.st the valuable assistance of 
Elder Whitman by death. No successor was appointed 
until 1673. "Then," says the record, "Mr. John Clark 
and Seargt. Daniel Buckingham were ordained Ruling 
Elders." Mr. Clark died the year following and Mr. 
Buckingham, the last elder in this Church, held his office 
until his death, on May 2, 1712. 

Early in the year 1683. Mr. Newton was attacked by 
a most painful disease, which continued for about three 
months, and at last caused his death, June 7 of that 
year. The most fruitful years of his ministry were 1669, 
when he received 20 members, and 167 i, when 17 were 
added at onetime and 31 during the entire year. Alto- 
gether he had received 164 persons to Church fellowship. 
He left the Church about 200 strong. 

Again an interregnum of years passed by. Then in 
the ciuaint language of the record: "After near one yeare 
of e.xpense of the gifts of Mr. Samucll Andrew, hee beeing 
to take a journey to ye Bay, this Church desired his dis- 
mission from ye church to which he did belong and hav- 
ing received a full and honorable dismission ('twas at his 
desire) he was admitted, Sept. 18, 1685, into this 
Church. .\nd after seeking God one a day of Humil- 
iation to guide us on our way, upon the 25th of October 
ye Church gave Mr. Andrew a call to a.xccpt of ye pas- 
toral office." He "axcepted" the call, and upon the iSth 
tlay of the same month was ordained by the ruling elder, 
assisted by Rev. Mr. Chauncey, who was appointed by 



iCo 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

the Church for that purpose. No regular salary was paid 
him at first, although what was its equivalent the town 
voted him from time to time what he needed. The first 
year 100 pounds were given him out of the town treasury, 
two-thirds to be paid in provisions, wheat at 6, rye at 4, 
and Indian corn at 3 shillings per bushel, and 12 pounds 
for firewood. At his ordination the town clerk was ordered 
to present him with a deed for various parcels of land 
amounting to 28 acres." 

In 1796 it was "Voted that Mr. Andrew shall iiave 
one hundred pounds sallery to be paid in good provisions 
at such rates and price as he use to be paid, and that great 
care be taken to see that he be well and truly paid, and 
that he shall have twelve pounds out of the town treas- 
ury for firewood." 

In 1 7 10 his salary amounted to 150 pounds and 12 
pounds for firewood. In 17 13 and 17 16 he was allowed 
the use of sequestered lands. Twenty acres at Turkey 
Hill were given him outright, and 100 pounds was added 
to his list to make his share in the New Milford purchase 
larger. In 1735 't was voted to give him 200 pounds out 
of the treasury during life. 

I notice these things to show how the ancient prac- 
tice of voluntary contributions was superseded by forced 
gifts and occasional grants of money until three-quarters 
of a century after the establishment of the Church, the 
minister became a regular town official and was supported 
by a regular salary from the treasury of the town. 

Mr. Andrew was not a man who would oppose such 
a movement. He was naturally endowed with great 
powers of mind and gave himself up to the assiduous 
cultivation of those powers. He spent most of his time 
in his study. Never made it a practice to visit and con- 
verse with his people. Seldom was he known to leave his 
study on a week day even to attend a funeral. All visit- 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MII.IORD. l6l 

ing and outside work was left to the ruling elder and the 
deacons. He was intellectual rather than spiritual, theo- 
logical rather religious. He was one of the best scholars 
of his time in New England and gave a great deal of time 
and thought to the establishment and building up of Yale 
college, of which he was one of the principal founders. 
In 1707 he was appointed rector pro tem., 'in which ca- 
pacity he served for twelve or thirteen years. He served 
for thirty-eight years as a member of the college corpor- 
ation, from its beginning until his death. 

He is said to have been "well versed in history, the 
learned languages and the sciences, but his favorite study 
was theology. He was noted for a singular acuteness 
and prudence, and was eminently (lualified to sit in judg- 
ment on difificult cases. He was frequently called upon 
to exercise his judicial skill in ecclesiastical councils and 
other gatherings in which his prudence was of great 
weight." We find his name among the roll of the cele- 
brated council that adopted the Saybrook platform. 

But with all his great powers of mind, his wide intel- 
lectual attainments, and his rich stores of scientific, his- 
torical and theological knowledge, there is no doubt that 
the morals of the town steadily declined during his min- 
istry. Such was the general drift of the times — "declin- 
ing times," as the New Haven Solons called them.' 
Scarcely any amount of faithfulness on the pastor's part 
could have stayed the tide of worldliness that was over- 
whelming the Church. In 1696 this singular vote was 
passed by the town meeting: 

"X'oted that Benjamin Smith is to look after the boys 
in his view in the meeting house; Thos. Bassett is chosen 
and appointed to sit in the foremost of the long seats on 
the west side of the meeting house to look after the bovs 
who sit in that part of the meeting house, and Joshua 
(luernsey to locjk after the boys who sit in his jiart of the 



1 62 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

meeting house." This plan did not succeed, however, in 
keeping the young sons of Belial in order, so the town 
ordered the selectmen and grand jurors to take the mat- 
ter in hand to see if they could not compel these terrible 
boys to respect the worship in the house of God. The 
difficulty was not confined to the boys entirely, for as we 
read along on those tell-tale records we find that the 
Pharisaic spirit of love for the highest seat in the syna- 
gogue was creeping rapidly into the Church. The vote 
concerning the seating of the meeting house is very in- 
structive. 

They were to be seated according to their position 
on the grand list. Some consideration, however, was to 
be had for magistrates, military officers, persons of de- 
fective hearing, wives of Church officers and aged per- 
sons. Then it was "voted that no man shall be removed 
out of his present seat except to an higher, unless there 
was some palpable mistake in seating him in his present 
seat." 

Then, "Whosoever shall be convicted before a Jus- 
tice of ye Peace of needless sitting out of ye seat they 
are regularly seated in, in the Meeting House, shall for- 
feit the sum of live shillings, to be paid into the town 
treasury." 

There is no difliculty in discerning the state of the 
Church and parish in these ancient records. The Church 
was slowly drifting away from the standards of purity, 
independence and theological doctrine of the fathers. 
While it was apparently prosperous, the seeds of jealousy 
and division were being sown which would yield an abun- 
dant crop. The first visible break was made about 1730, 
when the halfway covenant was formally adopted by the 
Church, which was practically throwing open the doors 
of the Church to all who wished to join, whether they 
were possessed of a submissive faith in Jesus or not. It 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 63 

culminated at last in open division and bitter hatred. 

Now it is strange that through all this spiritual de- 
cline the forms of religion were gone through with 
scrupulous exactness. The children were presented for 
baptism regularly, nor do we have any evidence that 
there was any falling off in the attendance upon public 
worship. The Church had the form of godliness if she 
did deny the power. Licentiousnes and drunkenness in- 
creased at fearful rates. The wise town fathers, as wise 
as worldly men usually are upon moral questions, opened 
the doors of the Church to the ungodly, demanded that 
kind of preaching, which made light of the depravity of 
mankind, and which speaks pretentiously of right, virtue, 
nobility, and heavenly felicity, and then hoped to stop 
the wickedness by legislation They succeeded, just as 
all such foolish attempts succeed. The tide of sin swept 
over their bulwarks of straw, tiie Church was rent in 
twain and enmities were formed whose bitterness de- 
stroyed the peace of the town for more than a genera- 
tion. 

The events of Mr. Andrew's ministry are interesting. 
In 1 7 10 the last of the first .settlers, Gov. Robert Treat, 
passed to his reward. In 172S the ancient meeting house 
gave place to a new and grander edifice. The new one was 
built upon the spot now occupied by the present building. 
It, too, faced toward the west. It was an enormous struc- 
ture, 84 feet long, 54 feet wide, and three stories high. But 
the parish was very large, populous and undivided and 
needed a large meeting house. It embraced the west 
part of Woodbridge and the north part of Orange, in ad- 
dition to its present dimensions. The upper gallery was 
occupied by the colored people, at that timetiuite numer- 
ous in the town. The meeting house has been often de- 
scribed, yet a few words may be neces.sary now. It was a 
great rectangular bo.x with a roof on the uppcrsidc. The 



164 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Steeple at the west end stood upon the ground and was 
95 feet high. In it were placed the bell, and a clock 
whose enormous weights were a source of perpetual 
astonishment to the young folks. There were three en- 
trances, one on the west end through the steeple, one on 
the south side and one on the east end, reached by a long 
flight of unbanistered steps. Within, the house was ex- 
cessively plain. The pulpit stood at the north side. It 
was overhung by a large sounding board and directly in 
front of it stood the seat for- the deacons. To this seat 
was attached a leaf used for a communion table. At first 
the house contained benches or plain seats. These after- 
ward gave place to those most inconvenient and unsightly 
things called pews, more properly called pens. Five 
aisles ran through the building from north to south. The 
galleries were reached from the inside of the audience 
room by winding stairs in the south corners, and were 
sustained by four enormous pillars which rested upon the 
ground. The house was built from the proceeds of a tax 
levied for that purpose and the profits of the flock of 
sheep kept by the town. The upper gallery was closed 
up by an arch in 1S03, and ia 1823 the building was de- 
molished. 

At the time of its erection the pastor was old and 
well stricken in years. His ministry had extendedfor 
nearly a half century, nevertheless he labored on until 
age compelled him to cease. He had received 530 per- 
sons into the Church and baptized 1553. The last years 
of his pastorate seem to have been the most fruitful ones. 
But whether it was from a laxity in the reception of mem- 
bers or real religious life we cannot tell. I am inclined 
to think it was the former. 

Mr. Andrew was born in Cambridge, Mass., the year 
that Mr. Prudden died, 1656; was graduated at Harvard 
at the age of 19, and occupied the position of tutor in 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHRIST, MH.FORD. 1 65 

that college until called to the pastorate of this Church. 
Soon after his settlement he married Abigail, daughter 
of Gov. Treat. He became the father of nine children 
who grew to maturity, though but two of them, only, 
survived him. One of his daughters married Gov. Law, 
another, Mr. ('utler, the rector of Vale college. 

Late in the year 1736 Mr. Andrew asked the Church 
for a colleague. This they provided in December of that 
year in the person of Samuel Whittelsey, and on Jan. 
24, 173S, in the 82nd year of his age and the 53rd of his 
ijiinistry, he was gathered to his fathers, and Mr. Whit- 
telsey reigned in his stead. 

Mr. Whittelsey was born at Wallingford, Ct., 1714; 
graduated at Yale when only 15 years of age; became a 
tutor there at 18, which position he held for about four 
years. He was ordained pastor of this Church by an 
ecclesiastical council, Dec. 9, 1737, in the face of the 
most strenuous opposition of a respectable minority. So 
bitter was the opposition that at first the council refused 
to proceed to the ordination. Hut the majority were de- 
termined to have him. His preach ing suited them and 
they were not so overflowing with the grace of charity 
as they might have been. They misconceived the situa- 
tion and the true spirit that prompted their opponents 

The first rumblings of that mighty religious earth- 
quake which shattered the spiritual iciness of the New 
England churches had been heard already at Northamp- 
ton, where Jonathan Edwards was preaching to vast 
crowds of almost despairing sinners. The thought of 
the awful holiness of (iod and the ill desert of nian was 
taking possession of the minds of many, as it had jios- 
sessed the minds of the Puritans in the days of Crom- 
well. The weak dilution of the gospel, so popular at 
that time, no longer satisfied these earnest souls. They 
wanted the law to be proclaimed with the accompanving 



l66 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

lightning of Sinai, as well as the proclamation of peace 
on earth, good will to men. They gladly prostrated 
themselves in the dust before the dreadful majesty of Je- 
hovah, to be disposed of according to his sovereign pleas- 
ure. They gladly confessed that they deserved nothing 
but endless burning from the hand of God, and their 
utter inability to escape without his mercy and grace. 
Such was the spirit that was rising as from the graves of 
Prudden, Davenport and Hooker to bless New England. 
Many a soul in Milford had felt its influence. But the 
majority of this Church disregarded it. Gov. Law, who 
had more ability than purity, led this majority, and 
through his influence, connected with that of Rev. Mr. 
"Whittelsey of Wallingford, the father of the candidate, 
.an arrangement was made and the ordination wasaccom- 
jplished. 

The minority were asked to let the matter rest for 
six months, and if they still remained unsatisfied relief 
would be granted. But they waited not only six months 
but two whole years, as dissatisfied as at first. Then as noth- 
ing was done for them they applied first to the Church, 
then to the town, and finally to the association, for relief. 
Failing in all these they separated themselves according 
to law, and commenced worshiping as a Presbyterian 
church in the house of George Clark, Jr., the first Sab- 
bath in Dec, 1741. 

Gov. Law was inexorable. He blocked their way, 
arrested, fined, imprisoned and transported the preachers 
out of the colony. Not until 1750 were they released 
from taxation to support this Church. They waited ten 
years longer before they were formed into a society, and 
ten years more before they received their portion of the 
parsonage funds and lands. 

Mr. Whittelsey, no doubt, made a grave mistake when 
he was induced to accept a call opposed by such a mi- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 167 

nority. Had they opposed him on the ground that liis 
preaching was too vigorous, or too plain, he might have 
concihated them, but when they complained that he was 
not preaching the gospel, but a system of morals; that 
he was not evangelical, he might have known that concilia- 
tion was hopeless. It was not the man they opposed but 
his doctrines, for he was a lovely, sweet-spirited man. "He 
was a person gifted in prayer, devout, affectionate, and 
well acquainted with mankind; but not the most dis- 
criminating, instructive and evangelical preacher of the 
gospel. His sermons were most clear and elegant, fine 
descriptions of the heavenly felicity and the happiness 
of the saints in the life to come, but they contained little 
or nothing calculated to awaken sinners and bring them 
to repentance," 

From this it is easy to see the grounds of opposi- 
tion, and that it was not a personal quarrel that rent this 
ancient Church asunder. The oppositi(;n though, doubt- 
lest, mixed with other motives, was based upon religious 
conviction. With all the good man's wisdom and love- 
liness of spirit we do not wonder that his whole ministry 
was a scene of perpetual difficulty. The Church was 
now reaping the harvest of long years of sowing. They 
had sown the seeds of religious apathy and formalism, 
and were reaping division and enmity. They had let 
worldliness into the Church and this was the result. I'or 
thirty-five years the fires of enmity burned fiercely be- 
tween the two churches, and were quenched only when 
the land was deluged with the blood of the patriots of 
the Revolution. In 1776 they consented for the first 
time to fellowship each (jther. 

There is little of interest to record during the thirty- 
one years of this paiitorate. Sept. 21, 1743, Mr. Whit- 
telsey was married to Susannah, the daughter of Col. 
Roger Newton, a grandson of the seccjnd pastor of this 



1 68 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Church. Four children were given to them, two sons 
and two daughters. 

In 1760 the First Ecclesiastical Society of Milford 
was formed. 

Upon the 22nd of Oct., 1768, Mr. Whittelsey's min- 
istry was cut short by his death, at the age of 54. He had 
received more than 300 persons into church fellowship, 
and had baptized over 700. It was his good fortune to 
begin his ministry during a great revival of religion. It 
was his misfortune that he was born and educated during 
a time of general spiritual apathy, and so was unfit to 
take advantage of that mighty religious movement to 
purify the Church and establish it again upon its ancient 
foundations. This work was left for his successor to ac- 
complish, who was chosen after a vacancy of two years. 

If we can judge anything of the character and spirit 
of the Church from the choices they next made, a com- 
plete revolution had taken place since 1738. Now they 
called Rev. Samuel Bird of Fair Haven, a pronounced 
Calvinist, but he declined. Next they chose Rev. Joseph 
Fish of Stonington, but he also refused the call. The 
Church had been accustomed to find their pastors in 
a tutor's chair. To Yale they sent, and found their third 
Samuel in the person of Samuel Wales, a young man of 
gigantic intellect and deep spirituality. He was the son 
of Rev. John Wales of Raynham, Mass., where he was 
born March, 1748. A graduate of Yale, class 1767, he 
taught for a short time at Lebanon in an Indian school, 
was appointed tutor at Yale in 1769, and was ordained 
pastor of this Church Dec. 19, 1770, by a council of the 
pastors and delegates of ten neighboring churches. He 
served as chaplain in the Continental army for a short 
time in 1776. Resigned his pastorate May 15, 1782, to 
take the position of Professor oi Divinity in Yale col- 
lege. In the autumn of 17S3 he was attacked with a ner- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 69 

vous alYection wliich afterward developed into epilepsy 
and insanity. He visited France, Netherlands and Eng- 
land for his health in 1786 but to no advantage. Six 
years later he retired from all public labor, and Feb. 18, 
1794, his darkened mind was released from its dungeon 
to the light of endless day. 

Dr. Wales was probably the greatest man that ever 
filled the ofifice of pastor in this Church. He was made 
a D. D. by both Yale and the College of New Jersey. 
He had a combination of talents that fitted him pre-emi- 
nently for his position. With unusual natural talents he 
was a hard student, an excellent classical scholar, but was 
distinguished for his devotional spirit and strict obedience 
to the dictates of conscience. Though possessed of gen- 
eral humor no irreverent expression was ever heard to pass 
his lips. He is thus described by one who knew him after 
he left Milford: 

"As to personal appearance he was about the middle 
height, slightly inclined to corpulency, bald, round fa- 
vored, had a blue or hazel eye, a highly intellectual face, 
and a more majestic and awe-inspiring look than I re- 
member to have seen in almost any other person. He 
had dignity without affectation or vanity. You felt that 
all he said or did was the simple working of a great mind 
and an excellent heart." 

He was a Calvinist of the old Puritan school, a 
grave but delightful companion. His pulpit clocjuence 
was of high order, unsurpassed by any of his contem- 
poraries. 'I'he only specimen of his eloquence is an 
Election sermon preached in 1785 upon "The Dangers of 
Our National Prosperity and the Way to .Vvoid Tlu-m." 
It is distinguished by loftiness of spirit and clearness and 
freshness of style. His voice was very deep toned and 
commanding, but used with remarkable skill. It is re- 
ported that when laboring under an attack of insanity he 



1 yo 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

turned upon a servant girl and repeated in his awful style 
one of his favorite sentences: "Conscience! Conscience! 
thou viceregent of the Almighty, do thine office !" 
Whereupon the girl fled in terror from his presence. 

His ministry here was during the trying years of the 
Revolution, yet his church work went steadily forward. 
The halfway covenant was discarded, one hundred and 
seven members were added to his church, and a very 
much better spirit was engendered in the town. His 
wife was Catharine, eldest daughter of Isaac Miles, a 
noted Revolutionary patriot of Milford. 

Mr. Miles built for his daughter what is now called 
the Train House. In it Mr. Wales lived until his removal 
to New Haven. Of their children, one was a girl, who 
was married to Mr. Seth Staples of New Haven, a noted 
lawyer of his day, and five were boys, one of whom was 
afterward elected a member of the Senate of the United 
States. They have now all passed away. 

After an interim of two years the Church chose its 
si.xth pastor, \Vm. Lockwood. He was the son of a min- 
ister, born at Wethersfield, Ct., Jan. 21, 1753; graduated 
at Yale, 1774; served as chaplain in the Revolutionary 
army; was associated with Washington and other distin- 
guished generals of the Revolution. Acted as tutor at Yale 
1779-80, and was ordained pastor of this Church, Mar. 17, 
1784. For twelve years he continued in that position but 
was compelled to resign in consequence of ill health. After 
his dismission, Apr. 28, 1796, he removed to Andover, Ct. 
From thence he went to Glastonbury and after supplying 
the Church at that place for a few months was installed 
as its pastor, Aug. 30, 1797. Ill health compelled him 
again to give up his ministerial labors after a pastorate 
of seven years. He afterward opened a private school 
at Glastonbury. He died June 23, 1S28. About nine 
months after his ordination he was married to Sarah 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. I 71 

Sturges of Fairfield, who survived him only six years. 
Their entire family of children, two sons ami three 
daughters, followed them to the grave. 

Mr. Lockwood is sjioken of as a man of many ex- 
cellencies of character, but his pastorate was not very 
successful. He was not a man of robust health, and he 
entered upon his labors here in an evil time. The per- 
nicious influences of war and the stifling breath of French 
infidelity, which at that time pervaded the land, were too 
strong for him, and the spiritual life of the (.Miurch again 
declined. During his ministry began that unfortunate 
custom of neglecting to pay promptly the minister's sal- 
ary, of which we hear so much during the early part of 
this century, but which is now happily obsolete. The 
records tell sad tales in this direction, even so late as 
1837. The salary was not due till the close of the year, 
and frequently was allowed to go unpaid for a year after 
it became due. 

For the last year or two of his pastorate, Mr. Lock- 
wood was partially incapacitated by sickness for the per- 
formance of his regular duties. Yet he was loath to re- 
sign. Hints were thrown out that his resignation would 
be acceptable but to no purpose. The relation of pastor 
and people m Mr. Lockwood's mind was akin to that be- 
tween husband and wife, and to be separated only by 
death. l>ut the Church did not so esteem it. They 
thought that when a pastor became unable to perform his 
duties he ought to resign. If the disability had been 
occasioned by age they would cheerfully have provided 
him with a colleague. They could not see the eternal 
fitness of assuming the support of a comparatively young 
man in the position of a retired pastor. So after patiently 
waiting until all proper efforts to restore Mr. Lockwood's 
health had been tried, and it became apjiarent that the 
Church was suffering for want of pastoral care, they voted 



172 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

that they desired a "dissolution of the covenant between 
them and Mr. Lockwood." He accepted the situation, 
satisfactory arrangements were made and the "covenant" 
was amicably dissolved. 

The Church had learned something, they thought, 
and were determined not to be caught with a sick min- 
ister on their hands again. Neither did they intend to 
spend their money in settling ministers for naught. They 
had given Dr. Wales $1,000, as settlement, and he had 
remained only eleven and a half years. Mr. Lockwood 
had received the same sum, and now after only twelve 
years they were called upon to make a settlement for a 
new pastor. This was becoming rather monotonous. 
Besides, $1,000 was no small sum for the society to raise 
in addition to the regular salary and running expenses. 
Especially was it burdensome if a change of pastors 
should occur every ten or twelve years. 

Accordingly they invited Bezaleel Pinneo to settle 
with them, voting to give him the one thousand dollars 
settlement, provided: "That in case he withdrew himself 
from the people without their consent, he refund at the 
rate of one hundred pounds, {^sssy's), for every ten 
years, computing a minister to be capable of performing 
ministerial services for thirty years.'' 

It was further voted that he should have one hun- 
dred and thirty pounds, ($434.34), salary, "provided he 
be willing to have the relation dissolved in case 
of sickness or other unforseen calamity, after a proper 
trial has been made to restore health or remove the cause 
of disability." This certainly was sufficiently definite. 
I do not wonder that Mr. Pinneo in his answer remarked 
upon the difficulties in his work "in a time of coldness 
and declension in religion." But the call was sincere and 
hearty. Mr. Pinneo's acceptance was equally hearty. 
Upon the 26th of Oct., 1796, the young pastor was or- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil, FORD. I 73 

dained. Rev. Mr. ISrockway of Lebanon, Ct., preached 
the sermon and Dr. 'rrumhull o( North Maven gave the 
charge 

The Church had made one of the wisest choices, and 
immediately began a long period of unbroken prosperity 
such as has fallen to the lot of but few churches in Xew 
England. Mr. I'innco was then in his 28th year, strong, 
fresh and earnest. The blood of the Huguenot and the 
Puritan was mingled in his veins. He is thus described 
by Dr. ]]race: "In person he was tall and well propor- 
tioned, with a complexion of ruddiness, his eye benign 
and conciliating, and his head a model of proportional 
development. * * * c;ood vigor in all his 
faculties, and good balance of them all, good sense and 
a good amount of it, with humble piety, were his pre- 
vailing characteristics. These with ordinary application 
made him a sound theologian, a respectable preacher and 
a valuable councilor. Though no metaphysician or dia- 
lectitian he had a jealous regard for truth in opposition 
to whatever be conceived to be an error. His intellec- 
tual powers were well disciplined and balanced. There 
was no decided superiority of one faculty over another, 
but each was relatively healthful and vigorous. * * 
* His mind was an index of his character. That, too, 

was remarkably symmetrical. It seemed to have been 
formed upon the Apostolical injunction: Whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatso- 
ever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatso- 
ever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good 
report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, 
think on these things. If there was any one trait preva- 
lent over others it was prudence — the habit of weighing 
well whatever he said and did." 

'Ihe spirit of the Church revived almost immediately 
under the influence of the new pastor. Revivals of re- 



174 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

ligion followed each other in quick succession during his 
entire ministry. At its close he could count seven per- 
iods of the unusual outpouring of God's spirit. Six 
hundred persons had stood up to profess their faith in 
Christ, beside the 116 he had received from other 
churches. He had set the seal of baptism to loii; 11 26 
of his flock went before him to the spirit world. 

At the time of his call it had been stipulated that he 
should preach six Sabbaths during the winter at Bryan's 
Farms. Mr. Lockwood had done so since 1791. This 
arrangement was continued until 1805, when in the face 
of the earnest opposition of this society the people of 
Bryan's Farms were set off as the parish of North Mil- 
ford. Jan. 3rd, 30 members were dismissed from this 
Church for the purpose of assisting in the organization 
of the Church in that new society. 

About this time a new departure was taken upon the 
subject of church music. It was voted that $12 be given 
Hezekiah Peck for his past services in singing and that 
$18 be granted for singing the ensuing year. Some years 
after, the first musical instrument, a bass viol, was intro- 
duced to help lead the choir. Other string instruments 
followed, until a first rate orchestra was formed. This was 
displaced by a harmonium and that by the magnificent 
organ now in use. In Mr. Pinneo's letter of acceptance 
he speaks of the desirability of having the upper gallery 
in the meeting house ceiled up. He did not possess a 
powerful voice and he felt that the congregation did not 
hear him as well as they ought. The society, however, 
took no immediate action in reference to the matter. In 
1803 an arch was constructed by subscription, which en- 
tirely hid the second gallery from view. 

In 1819 the society, instead of levying the usual 
tax, attempted to meet the regular expenses by a sale of 
seats. They failed, however, and for two years after 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 75 

they levied the tax and sold what seats they could, the 
money paid for a seat being credited on the tax. 

The meeting house was now becoming rather alarm - 
mgly shaky. When ministers from abroad came to 
preach here they would hurry through their sermons, lest 
the old building should come down upon their heads. 
The fame of the rickety old house went abroad in the 
state. Finally a committee was appointed to examine it. 
They reported it to be safe. But the terrific September 
gale of 182 1 decided the question, and in 1822 a resolu- 
tion to tear down the creaky building and construct a 
new one was passed by a vote of 91 to 31. Upon the 
i6th day of Feb., 1823, the people gathered to worship 
for the last time in the ancient temple. Its venerable 
walls had echoed to 6,000 sermons. They had looked 
down upon 813 persons as they were admitted into 
church fellowship. Nineteen hundred and eighty-two 
times had the sacred rite of baptism been performed be- 
neath its roof. Anna Stowe, daughter of Captain Wm. 
Piatt, completed the list. Five hundred and seventy-six 
times had the people gathered round the table of the 
Lord within its courts. We know not how many times 
had been announced from its pulpit that another of their 
number had been taken by death. The last of these 
mournful messages was occasioned by the death of the 
young wife of Selah Strong. 

It must have been a sad meeting indeed. In the 
pulpit sat Mr. Pinneo, yet in the prime of life; beneath 
him were the venerable deacons, Nettleton and Fenn. 
Ranged along the gallery seat were the choir under the 
care of their enthusia.stic leader, Mr. Samuel Beach. 
And in the pews were many whose memories went far 
back toward the time when the grand old house was new, 
as well as many whose lives were but begun and who re- 
main with us to-day. The choir sang the anthem begin- 



X]6 25CTH ANNIVERSARY 

nini^: "I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man 
could number," and Father Pinneo preached from the 
suggestive text: "Seeing then that all these things shall 
be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in 
all holy conversation and godliness." The congregation 
looked with tear-dimmed eyes for the last time upon the 
walls hallowed by the worship of nearly one hundred 
3'ears. 

Mar. 25, the house was razed with the earth and this 
smaller and more elegant one began to be erected on its 
site. The original dimensions of this edifice were seventy 
feet in length, fift3'-four in width and twenty-seven in 
height. It was built by Capt. Michael Peck at a cost of 
about $8,000, the money being raised by a tax of 35 
cents on the dollar. While it was building, the Church 
worshiped in the Episcopal meeting house. 

The Church now numbered 252 members, and was, 
as it has always been, one of the largest and most flour- 
ishing churches in the state. A conference room was 
fitted up in the basement of the meeting house, and the 
ancient Friday lecture, which had now developed into 
the modern prayer meeting, was held there. A Sabbath 
school which had been in an embryotic state was formally 
organized Nov. 18, 1724. In 1828-32 occurred most re- 
markable revivals of religion, whose influences can be 
easily traced to the present. The new house had not 
been provided with appliances for heating, in its con- 
struction, but in 1831 two stoves were introduced for 
that purpose. That the house might be kept tidy the 
sexton was required to sweep it once a month and put 
fresh sand into the spitboxes. 

The days of Father Pinneo's ministry were now 
drawing to a close. He was born at Lebanon, (now Co- 
lumbia) Conn., July 28, 1769; was graduated at Dart- 
mouth 1791; studied theology under I^r. Smalley of Ber- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MII.FORD. 1 77 

lin, and was ordained pastor of this Church, Oct. 26, 
1796. July II, 1S39, he addressed a letter to the society's 
committee, asking that an assistant pastor might be pro- 
vided to take the burdens which increasmg infirmities 
made impossible for him to bear. The society accord- 
ingly proceeded to carry his wish into effect. The sum 
of $900 was paid Mr. Pinneo, provided he made no 
further demands upon the society, and Jan. 4. 1S40, Mr. 
David Benton Coe was called to the position of assistant 
pastor. 

Mr. Pinneo was married twice. Mis first wife was 
Mary, only danghter of Rev. 'I'imothy Stone, of Leb- 
anon, Conn She died at the early age of thirty-six, 
leaving seven children. His second wife was Leah, 
daughter of Henry Hill, of Guilford. One child was 
born of this marriage, a son of unusual promise, who 
died at the age of 19. Mrs. Pinneo survived her hus- 
band about seven years. 

In addition to his pastoral work, Mr. Pinneo fitted 
about tliirty boys for college and instructed several stu- 
dents in theology. 

For about ten years after his retirement from j^ublic 
labors he lived in Milford, ever manifesting a deep inter- 
est in the welfare of the Church, until he received the 
summons from on high, Sept. 16, 1849, intheSist yearof 
his age and the 53rd of his ministry. 

Mr. Coe, his colleague, was born in Cranville, Mass., 
Aug. 16, 1814. He was graduated at Vale in 1837, from 
college, and in 1840 from theolo^jy. He was appointed 
tutor but had scarcely begun his duties before he was 
called to this Church. He was ordained Oct. 14, 1840. 
After nearly four years ministry he was dismissed to take 
charge of the .\llyn St. church, N. V". city. Five years 
later he gave up that charge to accept the office of Dist. 
Sec. for the A. P. C. !•". .M. Soon after, lie became one 



178 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

of the Cor. Secretaries of the A. H. ■SI. S., in which capac- 
ity he has served ever since. 

About a year after his ordniation a great revival of 
rehgion fairly broke out under the preaching of an illit- 
erate Baptist minister. It first began in the lower part 
of Orange, but soon spread through the whole of Orange 
and Milford. Mr. Coe took up the work with 
great vigor. Great numbers were hopefully converted 
to Christ, this Church alone receiving 145 in the single 
year of 1S43, while large numbers were added to the Sec- 
ond church in this town and to the church in Orange. 

Mr. Coe was passionately loved by his people, and 
his removal after so short a pastorate was not only a grief 
to the Church but an injury to the town, from which we 
have not yet recovered The whole town had been so 
thoroughly aroused by the great revival, and such large 
numbers had been admitted, that there was hardly any 
calamity that could have befallen them greater than the 
removal of the pastor. At no other time in the Church's 
history had she been in greater need of a strong and 
faithful minister. The excitement on the temperance 
question was at that time beginning to take a political 
turn. Large manufacturing interests were being estab- 
lished by men who paid little genuine attention to religion 
and members of the Church were learnmg how to place 
their property in such positions that they could fail in 
business and remain rich. The Church, under the lead- 
ership of Mr. Coe, denounced this infamous practice in 
unmeasured terms. They voted that they "held it in utter 
abhorrence," that such persons were "unrighteous and 
could not inherit the kingdom of God." But Mr. Coe 
went away soon after, and the serpent which had been 
only stunned, soon revived and inserted its poisonous 
fangs into the spiritual life of the Church. Much less 
care was taken to exclude unworthy members than for- 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 79 

merly. The old custom of public excommunication or 
of public confession became practically obsolete, and a 
decline of spiritual life and power began. The seeds of 
dishonesty, of disrespect for law, of political trickery, of 
disregard for the Sabbath were then sown, and we are left 
to reap the harvest. 

Since that time the Church has not lacked abundant 
prosperity. There is no doubt she is richer, and larger 
than she was forty years ago, but I think there is no 
doubt that she has been shorn of much of her spiritual 
strength, and is not ths power for good to this commun- 
ity that she was when Mr. Coe began his ministry. 

It is needless for me to go into minute particulars 
concerning the history from that time to this, as it is 
perfectly familiar to us all. During Mr. Coe's ministry, 
1844, the first manual of the Church was issued, showing 
a membership of 538, and our present confession of faith 
formulated. About the same time the old Book of 
Psalmody was displaced in worship by the Church 
Psalmody. This was used till 1865, when our i^resent 
book. The Songs of the Sanctuary, was introduced. 

After the dismission of Mr. Coe a vacancy of about 
one year occurred. The choice of the Church then fell 
upon Rev. Jonathan Brace. He was born at Hartford, 
Ct., Jan. 12, 1 8 10. A graduate of Amherst college, he 
studied theology at Andover, New Haven and Princeton. 
He was ordained pastor over the church at Litchfield, 
Ct., in 1838, and served in that position six years; re- 
signing in consec]uence of ill health. He was installed 
pastor in this Church, Sept. 24, 1845. After a pastorate 
of over i3 years, he resigned and removed to Hartford, 
where he has since been engaged in the publication of 
the Religious Herald. 

He left the Church powerful in numbers and united 
in spirit. During his slay the new chapel was built, the 



ItO 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

bell purchased and the meeting house thoroughly refitted. 
When he left it numbered about 500 members. 

For its tenth minister the Church chose James W. 
Hubbell, a native of Wilton, Ct. Born March 20, 1835, 
a graduate of Yale 1857, and of Andover in 1863. He 
was ordained pastor of this Church, Sept. 21, 1864, and 
dismissed Jan. i, 1869, to take charge of the College St. 
church in New Haven, where he has been ever since. 
During his ministry the number of deacons was fixed 
at five and their term of office changed from "during 
life" to five years. 

The ancient custom of administering the communion 
after the forenoon service was changed and it was put in 
place of the afternoon service. The meeting house was 
enlarged and newly frescoed and this splendid organ was 
purchased, principally by the ladies. His labors were 
greatly blessed spiritually and large numbers were added 
to the Church. 

Immediately after his removal, x^lbert J. Lyman 
was secured to supply the pulpit, and after trial of nine 
months was ordained and installed pastor Sept. 7, 1870. 
He was compelled to resign on account of ill health, after 
a short though fruitful pastorate. He was dismissed 
Dec. 3, 1873. Since that time he has been acting pastor 
of the South church in Brooklyn, N. Y. Over loo per- 
sons were admitted to membership during his ministry 
and the Church reached its ma.\imum number, 581, in 
1873. Two years without a pastor, however, reduced the 
number to 525. Her present membership is 528, forty of 
whom are absent. 

Bear with me yet a moment. I cannot dismiss this 
history without one word of comment or reflection. The 
labor I have given has been a labor of love, and I turn 
almost sadly from it now that it is finished. The hours 
of sweet enjoyment I have spent, in gathering up the 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, Mil. FORD. l8l 

memoirs of the sainted ones to whose faitlifuhiess this 
ancient Church of Christ has owed its rare prosperity, 
can never be forgotten. I have tried to commune with 
them and catch their spirit. I have tried to go in and out. 
with the seven generations who Iiave worshiped here and 
now are singing that new song where the wicked cease 
from troubling and the weary are at rest. 

I have listened to the burning words of Prudden, 
the more measared terms of Newton, the calm, judicious 
language of Andrew, the pure, elegant sentences as they 
flowed from the lips of the sweet-spirited Whittelsey, the 
majestic, thrillmg eloquence of Wales, the minor strains of 
Lockwood, the quick, earnest, prudent instruction of Fath- 
er Pinneo, until they became almost living personages to 
me, even though the grave has hushed their voices scores 
of years ago. And with gratitude to God have I re- 
joiced that I could be the companion in the labor of these 
great, good men. 

Few churches in the annals of our country have such 
a history as we. Few churches can count among her pas- 
tors such an unbroken band of godly men. To-day, we sit 
beneath the glorious memories of two hundred and thirty- 
seven years; the cloud of witnesses of seven generations 
surround and hover over us. Here they toiled and prayed, 
they loved and wept, anil from this consecrated ground 
they went to their reward. They charge us to be faithful 
to our trust, but, instructed l)y their mistakes, to keep the 
foundations of this historic Church upon the everlasting 
Rock, that the centuries to come may witness all the 
power the past has seen, and may be multiplied in works 
of love and heroic Christian achievement. 



DEACONSUF THE CHURCH, 1639-1784- 

The manual of the Church gives no record of the 
uames of the deacons befor the year 17S6. Rev. J. A. 
Biddle has furnished the following list of those in the 
diaconate previous to that time, giving the dates of their 
election and death as accurately as possible: 



NAME. 


ELECTED. 


DIED. 


Zachariah Whitman, 


1639? 




Benjamin Fenn, 


1647 


1772 


John Fletcher, 


^659 


1662 


George Clark, Sr., 


1650 


1690 


Jasper Gunn, 






Richard Piatt, 


I70S? 


1737 ? 


Thomas Clark, 




1727 


John Camp, 


1713 


173I 


Josiah Piatt, 




1724 


Joseph Clark, 


1735? 


1758 


Richard Piatt, Jr., 






John Smith, 


1755 


1783 


Nathaniel Buckingham, 


1765 


1780 


Thomas Clark, 


1784 


180I 



It is supposed that Samuel Woodruff, died 1772, 
Thomas Baldwin, died 1772, and Daniel Clark, elected 
deacon 1780 and died 1787, were also among the num- 
ber. 



Donors of the Newton Tablet. 



Allen, Miss Sarah C, 
Andrew, Miss Elizabeth M., 
Andrew, " Mary E., 
Anderson, Mrs. Charlotte 

Stowe, 
Baird, Miss Catharine N., 
Baird, " Emily J , 
Baird, Rev. John G., 
Baird, Col. (ieorge W., 
Baldwin, Shirlan, 
Beard, J. Wooster, 
Beard, Miss Harriet F., 
Bishop, Mrs. Albert, 
Bishop, " Charles, 
Bradley, " David, 
Bradley, Frederic N., 
Bradley, Miss Susan, 
Brown, Mrs. Sarah I>ush 
Butler, " Julia Morris, 
Carrington, Miss Julia A., 
Church, Mrs. Charles W., 
Clark, Albertus X., 
Clark, Clifford E., 
Clark, Dwight, 
Clark, Mrs. Enoch, 
Clark, " Josephine iJeard, 
("lark, Ornian S., 
Clarke, Mrs. David N., 
Clarke, Miss M. Ellen, 



Milford, Conn. 
New Haven, Conn. 



Milford, Conn. 

Ellington, Conn. 
Boston, Mass. 
Bridgeport, Conn. • 
Plainville, Conn. 

New Britain, Conn. 
\V'oodbridge, Conn. 
Derby, Conn. 

Naugatuck, Conn. 

West Hartford, Conn. 
Milford, Conn. 
Middletown, Conn. 
.Milford, Conn. 

Orange, " 
Milford, " 

Northampton .Mass. 
Milford, Conn. 



184 250TH ANNIVERSARY 

Clarke, David L., Milford, Conn. 

Clarke, Elbert N., 

Clarke, Mrs. Owen T., " " 

Fenn, " Dan, " " 

Fenn, " Nathan, New York City. 

Gillette, Miss Martha, Milford, Conn. 

Gillette, Mrs. William, 

Gunn, Miss Harriet N., " " 

Kilbourn, Miss S. Elizabeth, Middletown, Conn. 

Kilbourn, Jonathan E., Pueblo, Col. 

Lovejoy, Mrs. Julia Stowe, JanesviUe, Wis. 

Merwin, " John E , Lakeville, Conn 

Morris, Charles Newton, West Hartford, Conn. 

Morris, Edward Livingston, " " '' 

Morris, William Armstrong, " " " 

N£wton, Arthur S., Durham, Conn, 

Newton, Mrs. Caroline G, " " 

Newton, George W., " " 

Newton, Henry G , " . " 

Newton, Henry H., " " 

Newton, Dea. Roger W., " " 

Newton, Jonathan E., " " 

Newton, Miss Eliza H., " " 

Newton, Dea. RoUin C , Woodbridge, Conn. 

Newton, Frederic P , New Haven, " 

Piatt, A. Clark, Milford, Conn. 

Piatt, Charles W., 

Piatt, David, 

Piatt, Dea. Henry N., 

Plati, Mrs. N D wight, 

Piatt, Richard, 

Piatt, Jonah C, Derby, 

Russell, Miss Elizabeth, Woodbridge, Conn. 

Shove, Mrs. Frank, Elgis, 111. 

Smith, " William B., Milford, Conn. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 



Stanley, " Mary Newton, 
Stowe, Dea. Henry, 
Stowe, Miss Sarah N. L., 
Wait, Mrs. Carrie Stowe,. 
Ward, George N., 



East Hartford, Conn. 
New Haven, " 
Milford, Conn 
Jersey City, N J. 
Middlet(jwn, Conn. 



Donors of the Andrew Tablet. 



Andrew, Samuel Wooster, 
Andrew, Henry Daggett, 
Andrew, Mrs. Charlotte 

Rogers, 
Andrew, William, 
Andrew, Wellington Miles, 
Andrew, W. Treat, 
Andrew, Mrs. A. F., 
Andrew, Lemuel F., 
Andrew, Dennis, 
Andrew, Miss Mary E., 
Andrew, " Elizabeth, 
Baldwin, Nathan A., 
Baldwin, Adam Pond, 
Baldwin, Edwin B., 
Baldwin, Mrs Ira W., 
Baldwin, Andrew, 
Baldwin, Ferdinand, 
Benjamin, Mrs. James, 
Benjamin, " Sarah Mar- 
shall, 
Bailey, Mrs. Jane Smith, 
Bailey, Andrew Smith, 
Beard, Mrs. Judson, 
Beard, AddisfMi, 
Beard, Rogers, 



Boston, Mass. 
New York City. 



Milford, Conn. 
Orange, " 



New Haven, Conn. 

(( ii a 

Milford, Conn. 
New York City. 
Milford, Conn. 
Woodbridge, Conn. 
Milford, Conn. 



250TH ANNIVERSARY 



Milford, Conn. 
New York City. 
Milford, Conn. 
Shelton, " 
Plainville, Conn. 
Milford, Conn. 
New Haven, Conn. 
Charleston, S. C. 
Milford, Conn. 



Beard, Joseph, 

Beard, Ira, 

Beard, Andrew A., 

Beard, Mrs. Seymour R., 

Beard, " Joseph W., 

Beard, " Elliott J., 

Beard, " William, 

Brown, Andrew Smith, 

Brown, Mrs. Anna Smith, 

Brown, Samuel Andrew, " " 

Brown, Wilbur Brace, " " 

Brown, Miss Sarah Elizabeth, " " 

Beach, Mrs. Maria Clark, " " 

Beach, Miss Marie Antoin- 

nette. 
Beach, Walter Rogers, New York City. 

Birket, Mrs. Martha Mar- 
shall, Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Buckingham, Mrs. Lucretia 

Prindle, Milford, Conn. 

Buckingham, Mrs. Sarah 

Clark, by her daughter, 

Mrs. Fanshaw, " " 

Bristol, Mrs. Emma G. 

Buckingham, " " 

Clarke, Samuel B., New York City. 

Clarke, David N., Milford, Conn, 

Clarke, David Leland, 
Clarke, Miss M. Ellen, 
Clark, Mrs. Catharine, " " 

Clark, Andrew, " 

Clark, Nathan T , a ^ 

Clark, Henry N, 

Clark, Mrs. Emma Andrew, Orange, " 
Clark, " Rogers, Milford, " 

Clark, " Abigail, 



FIRST CHURCH OK CHKISI', MH.FOKO. 187 

t 

Clark, Edgar Thomas, Milford, Conn. 

Clark, Miss Bertha, 
Curnow, Mrs. Jane A. Buck- 
ingham, Norwalk, " 

Curnow, Mrs. S. Virginia 

Elmer, New Haven, Conn. 

Curtis, Mrs. Charlotte Clark, Milford, Conn. 
Curtis, " Horace, for her 

children, \N'oodbury, Conn. 

Curtis, Carl A , 
Curtis, Miss Olivia H., 
Coy, Mrs. George, Milford, " 

Carpenter, Mrs. Mary A. 

Bailey, New Haven, " 

Crosby, Mrs. Charlotte V. 

Brown, Norwalk, " 

Durand, W. Cecil, Milford, 

Durand, Samuel, " " 

Elmer. Mrs. Adelia, " 

Elmer, George Andrew, New Haven, " 

Elmer, Mrs. Anna B. Clark, " " " 

Estrander, Mrs. Anna L , " " " 

Eastwood, " Alice Stowe, 

Ford, Miss Minnie Elizabeth, Milford, " 

Fenn, Mrs. William, 

Grififin, " Mary Marshall, 

Grinnell, " Natalie Baldwin, New York City. 

Hotchkiss, Samuel M., Hartford, Conn. 

H(jtchkiss, Mrs. Emma 

Stowe, " " 

Hotchkiss, " lAicelia 

Prindle, West Haven, Conn. 

Judd, Mrs. Martha Ncttleton, New Haven, 

Marshall, Rev. Henry 

Grimes, Cronnvell, " 

Marshall, Miss Mary Abigail, New Haven, 



250TH ANNIVERSARY 



Marshall, " Harriet Newell, New York City. 

Marshall, " Jerusha An- 
drew, 

Marshall, " Lydia Bryan, " " " 

Merwin, Mrs. Anna M. El- 
mer, Milford, Conn. 

Merwin, " Julia A Elmer, " '■ 

Merwin, " Adela Piatt, " " 

Miller, " Lucy L Brown, " " 

Nettleton, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Ford, 

Nettleton, Samuel Andrew, " " 

Nettleton, D. Louis. " " 

Nettleton, Mrs. Charlotte A. 

Baldwin, " " 

Nettleton, DeWitt Baldwin, " " 

Nettleton, Miss Annie Dore- 

mus, for her grandfather, 

David L. Baldwin, " " 

Nettleton, Mrs. Almon, " " 

Nettleton, George Edward, 

Nettleton, Charles Andrew, New Haven, Conn. 
Nettleton, H. Edward, West " " 

Ostrander, Mrs. Anna L. 
Piatt, Mrs. Ida V. Curtis, 
Piatt, " Virginia Smith, 
Piatt, Theodore, 
Pardee, Frank W., 
Rand, Mrs. Harriet E. 

Brown, 
Rogers, Mrs. Julia S. Clark, Milford, " 
Rogers, John E., " " 

Smith, Mrs Dennis Beard, " " 

Smith, Miss Susan E., 
Smith, Herbert A., 



Milford, Conn. 

New Haven, Conn. 
Essex, Conn. 



FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST, MILFORD. 1 89 

Stearns, Mrs. Mary DcWitt 
Baldwin, for her chil- 
dren. 

Stearns. Fred J>ald\vin, New York City. 

Stearns, Miss Minnie Elsie, " •' " 

Stevenson, Mrs. Sarah J. Bai- 
ley, New Haven, Conn. 

Spencer, •' Jennie E. Cur- 
tis, Seymour, " 

Stone, Ferdinand, Louisville, Ky. 

Stone, Mrs. Laura E., " " 

Stone, " Julia Ellen, " 

Woodhull, Mrs. Emma, ^L'^rshall, Conn. 

Willard, Mrs. Annie Stone. 



Donors of the Whittelsey Tablet. 

Miles, Miss Diana M., Milford, Conn. 
Miles, Henry ("!., " " 

Bull, \Vm. Whittelsey, Plymouth, " 
^^'elles, Miss Elizabeth, " " 

Wardwell, Mrs. Eliza Talcot, '• " 

Fisher, Mrs. Susan Talcot, Oakland, Cal. 

Earned, Mrs. Maria Talcot, New London, Conn. 

Clarke. .Miss Susan C, Middletovvn, " 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 

The Committee on Publication hereby acknowledge 
to Mr. William Fowler, Milforcl, Conn., their debt of 
gratitude for the gift of the engravings found in this 
book, except that of the Newton tablet, which was pre- 
sented by those who gave the. tablet. 

Mr. Fowler is in direct lineal descent from the orig- 
inal Wm. Fowler, who was one of the "Seven Pillars" of 
the First Church, and is the ninth descendant who bears 
the name of William. 



m 



